


Lisa Loud's Funtime Machine: Baby Boogaloo

by Blueperson2021



Category: The Loud House (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Sin Kids (The Loud House), Lincoln never slept with the sisters but got the kids anyway., Multi, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:40:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 22
Words: 59,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27507751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blueperson2021/pseuds/Blueperson2021
Summary: Sort of Sequel to Omega Ultra's fanfic: Lisa Loud's Funtime Machine!Lisa Loud's incredible invention granted the most perverse wishes of the Loud siblings, but at a heavy price. Now they must navigate parenthood with an ever expanding cast of progeny, including their mutual 'Sin Kids' and anyone else's that Lisa could could fit the goggles onto!
Relationships: Lori Loud/Bobby Santiago, Luna Loud/Sam Sharp
Kudos: 5





	1. A Day in the Life

**Waking up:**

He was warm. So very warm…

"Da-da."

Something was petting him, but he didn't want to wake up.

"Da! Da!" The little petting starting hitting harder, and he could help but shift in annoyance.

Instantly he was cold and wet. The stink of fresh ammonia hit his nostrils and though he willed his eyes open with urgency his eyelids slid apart slowly like they had connection latency issues.

Loan was staring at him with a sad face.

"Gotta go potty!"

His stomach dropped a bit (not _nearly_ as much as it did months ago) when he glanced down and sure enough Loan's diaper was wet and yellow at the crotch, with some trickling down her bare leg onto his upper chest.

He gagged a bit and tried to raise his arm, only to find it weighed down. A slight hiss from a waking Lulu reminded him why.

Loan had had a nightmare and Luan couldn't calm her down, she wanted Lori. Of course Lori was miles away and couldn't answer her phone at one in the morning, so the next best thing was Lincoln.

So into his usually spawn free room she went until she felt better.

The problem was that Loan was an often literal crybaby.

She could be soothed by the usual techniques and seemed to feel better in his arms, but any time she seemed to sleep she would promptly start whimpering when he went to put her back to bed. Of course when Lari woke up for a midnight feeding (because babies are merciless little creatures) she'd noticed that Loan was in her father's arms and promptly demanded a pickup as well.

Unable to put Loan down he'd had no choice but to acquiesce upon pain of tantrum. Of course Lulu's sharp ears noticed the 'conflict' and promptly startled babbling, which woke up another child, who woke up another-

And then Luan just picked up every child in the room and told him he could sleep in the nursery that had once been Lori and Leni's room or his own. Eight jealous babies demanding attention would quickly wake up the six Lana had in the next nursery, and the seven Lucy held watch over in the one past that.

So here he was, his upper body covered in mostly sleeping infants. Luan can been kind enough to tuck him in with only a moderately bad pun before sneaking off to sleep in the now vacated nursery.

Of course now he had to get up, preferably without waking up his blanket of progeny.

"Potty…" Loan sniffled, big tears welling up in her eyes.

_Oh no._

"It's okay," he quickly reassured her, or at least tried to. "I can change you-"

Loan let out a wet sob as another trickle went down her legs, and Lupa stirred. Her little nose wrinkled from the smell and she cracked open a disturbingly yellow eye (that Lisa _promised_ she had nothing to do with) and hissed at her golden-blonde sibling who promptly burst into embarrassed tears.

Which of course woke up another sibling. Then another. This cycle continued and each one started yammering something in babyish babble that woke up the house at the ripe time of five in the morning.

"Dang it."

* * *

**Breakfast time:**

The big table was back.

And still it was not enough.

Crowded through the dining room were three tables in total, the big table serving as the main one, but with two others obtained from elsewhere in the house scattered around to seat the many children who needed feeding. Said children were seated in a combination of a few high chairs while the majority were propped up in baby car seats tied to regular chairs.

The two smaller tables had a parent each to them. Lucy was assigned to the triplets, Lupa and Leia as the established manager of the 'troublemakers'. Luan as usual had her own table filled with the five she had spawned, since the kids responded better to their own mothers and came and they always went as one anyway the five had gradually formed a little sub-unit that Luan was almost always assigned to. Lastly Lana was assigned to the big table where the rest of the children were seated along with the permanent caretakers (or at least resident of the house in the scientist's case) Lincoln and Lisa.

Lincoln himself was presently trying to convince a less co-operative than usual Lemy to eat rather than wear his mushy carrots. Lyra was dutifully munching away as usual but Lemy was sulking and avoiding the spoon.

"Ma-ma!" He complained.

"I'm sorry Lemy she's not here right now," Lincoln sighed. At this rate he'd have to take the carrots away until he got hungry, and that would screw up the entire schedule.

"Ma! Ma!" Lemy demanded and scooped up from damp orange mush to toss right into Lincoln's freshly changed shirt.

He really should have known better than to hope it would stay clean for more than a few minutes.

At least the colours matched.

Lynn Sr and Rita came out the kitchen, Lynn looking tired from having prepared so much mush despite years in the restaurant business.

"Alright kids," Rita walked over and ruffled Lincoln's mysteriously sticky hair. Mysterious in the sense that no one knew what made it sticky, not why considering the small army of mess makers surrounding them. "We're nearly out so your father and I are just popping down to get some more supplies-"

"Out?" Lincoln dropped his efforts with Lemy immediately, who grumpily picked up the small bowl and dumped it in his hair. "Out of what?"

" _Nearly_ out." Rita corrected. "Food, bleach, that kind of thing-"

"Do we have enough toilet paper Mom?" Lana bluntly inquired, "you _know_ what's coming."

"I… I think so," Rita tried to assure.

"But just to be sure we're going now, the sooner we go the sooner we come back!" Lynn grasped his wife by the shoulder and practically dragged her to the door. "Try to go easy on the double ply!"

* * *

**Potty Time:**

It came as an inevitability.

Kids eat a lot.

Babies eat a lot.

The food goes into them, it nourishes their growing bodies and lets them coo and giggle and do all the nice things that gets their cheeks pinched for how cute they are. It also lets them do all the not so nice things that drive parents to ask if they were in purgatory for their literal fuckery. Then, after all the play and learning all that nice food is all used up.

And it comes out.

Half an hour on the dot after every the start of every mealtime was the established Potty Time in the Loud House. While no one was out of diapers yet the elder set of siblings were at least trying to get the older of their progeny used to holding it until they got to the potties.

Now only a few minutes after their own parents had fled Lincoln and Lisa were in the original bathroom. Ten cheap potties arranged in rows were being filled with young butts and whatever contents they deigned to disperse.

"Unng!" Loan's little face screwed up and turned red.

"Don't push it Loan," Lincoln knelt down to stroke her hair, resisting the urge to gag as the smell intensified. "You'll give yourself a tummy ache."

Loan looked up with her big, seemingly ever watery eyes. "Can't go!"

"As she previously expelled a stool and large quantity of urine, Loan is unlikely to need to 'go' as you put it." Lisa confirmed from within a section of the bathroom cordoned off with a sheet, Lulu's 'relief' being only handled by herself and occasionally a very sad Lincoln. "I would advise letting her 'hold it' until after the routine bathing has been completed instead."

Loan of course understood none of this, except that apparently she'd failed at something, and as per usual promptly started blubbering. "I Sowwy!"

Lincoln would spend the next few minutes calming the near toddler down, giving Lisa dirty looks through the sheet and convincing Lupa not to try and get Lemy to eat her poop.

Then Lisa would depart with the children for their lessons, leaving him to carefully empty the potties down the toilet and desperately try not to gag on the scent from The Brown Wave.

* * *

**Lesson time:**

"A…" Lisa's eye twitched as she pointed to the letter on the projector screen.

They were in the living room, a small army of children surrounding her and mouthing (some clearly just pretending) the name of each letter she pointed to on her projector.

"B…" she continued. Her fellow 'inmates' as Luan dubbed them were gathered behind the couch, looking down on those sitting on the couch proper and sitting on the rug immediately before it in two rows. They had to watch just in case someone tried something, not that it was likely with the troublemakers making up the row closest to Lisa. But nonetheless Luan, Lana and Lucy kept a close eye on a row each to make sure no overt shenanigans began.

"C…" Lisa could feel her sanity start to fray at the banality of it all. Oh how she longed for the more advanced method she had been banned from…

Still, there were good students obediently following her instructions; Lyra, Lynn III, Liena, Loan, Leia and Liby openly paid attention.

Everyone else however…

Lani's little voice yelped up for a moment as Lulu's stretchy and segmented arm flopped out from the stool she sat next to her mother upon to give her sibling a light smack. Reluctantly mollified the possibly demonic child started actually saying the letter names as they were issued.

Some part of Lisa was gratified as her clearly superior offspring disciplined the home grown spawn of her most perverse sister. But the rest of her being could not help but groan in despair at the nonsensical punishment her own mother had set her to;

 _"_ _No 'special methods' Lisa!" Her mother admonished, the education helmets having been confiscated in a pile, consigned to the garage until further notice. "This is part of your punishment!"_

 _"_ _Parental Unit this is asinine," Lisa countered with annoyance. "You are impeding the fulfilment of the very task you set me to. Additionally I am well into adulthood therefor-"_

 _"_ _Therefore you are fully responsible for tricking the girls and Lincoln into parenthood!" Rita snapped. "You are going to make up for it by helping them through this, and not just by using our grandchildren as your test subjects!"_

 _"_ _Bah?" Lulu asked in recognition._

 _"_ _Ignore her S-12," Lisa assured her pride. "My parental unit is being irrational again."_

_Rita's eye twitched, "love and care are an important part of growing up Lisa. I'm sorry to hear that you find that 'irrational'."_

_"_ _Only in the context of handicapping the potential gains for both the offspring and science as a whole," Lisa rolled her eyes. "You are letting your personal feelings overcome your good sense, just look at S-12'; she has made extensive use of the helmet and now will not require schooling until Grade 4 at least. A few more sessions and she will be the equivalent of a university graduate!"_

_Lulu titled her head at that._

_"_ _And by skipping all the shared experience of learning with her friends and family she'll be stunted as a person!" Rita groaned. "She has to be able to grow in her own way, with her family, with_ _you_ _Lisa."_

 _"_ _Well I hardly see why she can't do both," Lisa huffed. "S-12 has managed well enough so far, better than her peers I might add!"_

_Rita's eyes narrowed. "You haven't been watching her properly have you?"_

_"_ _I have made many obersvations-_

 _"_ _Lulu?" Rita interrupted Lisa. "Do you like the helmet?"_

_Lulu twisted her neck one hundred and eight degrees to look at her grandmother in curiosity._

_"_ _When Mommy puts the helmet on you, do you like it?"_

_Lulu seemed to consider this for a moment._

_"_ _Clearly S-12 appreciates her enrichment," Lisa rolled her eyes. "Learning such quantities of information at such speed is-"_

_Lulu crawled up to her grandmother and shook her head._

_"_ _Is.. is a superior method of information transfer…" Lisa's confused tone dropped._

 _Rita picked up the crawling tot and turned her to face Lisa. "She's not learning Lisa, she's having all that information dumped into her head without any context or choice. She_ _can't_ _enjoy that kind of experience._

_Your helmet takes the joy out of learning."_

_Lisa felt like she'd been slapped. "I- you-"_

_"_ _Lulu?" Rita looked down. "Would you like to put the helmet on again?"_

_Lulu shook her head._

_"_ _Would you like to learn with Mommy like the other kids?"_

_Lulu nodded._

_Rita looked at the flabbergasted Lisa with satisfaction. "Well it's two to one my little genius, there's a lesson plan on the kitchen table and some juice for the kids after._

_Try to have fun."_

She was not having fun.

After the pointless and frustrating task of going over the alphabet song with infants was finally done, Lisa swapped with Lucy for guard duty while the pale goth sat on the couch for Storytime. Her voice entranced the children, rising in just the right places to keep their attention on her.

Finally, when she was done, the children were satisfied and sleepy. Just in time for Naptime.

* * *

**Naptime:**

Lincoln of course had disappeared after dealing with The Brown Wave, by unofficial consensus it was agreed that whoever had to empty the potties got to take an hour or so off afterwards. Lincoln promptly used that time to get some more sleep in his freshly child free room.

Couple that with naptime being the general recuperation period for the adults, and thus generally needing only one mostly stationary adult, and he was safely left alone for a whole three to four hours!

Once again, mostly used for sleep.

The man needed his rest.

So had Lynn and Rita; the couple pulled up in the ancient and held together with duct tape Vanzilla. The van was stuffed with toilet paper and other supplies, but they had only needed ten minutes for that. Thanks to Lynn Sr's business connections they could easily bulk buy the supplies they needed relatively cheaply and have them ready and waiting when they arrived at the ware-house like store.

Instead of spending that time finding and hauling goods around, the two just went to a park and became potatoes for an hour. Then moved on to separate paths to a talk with friends at a café and music store (Lynn was proud as ever to see Luna's band still selling on Vinyl), before finally coming together at the pre-agreed time to head back into the fray with the badly needed supplies.

They hadn't left it truly urgent of course, there were easily enough supplies left for the day unless the kids all got diarrhoea at once. Only a monster would condemn their children to handling twenty one dirty bottoms with only water to clean them with but, gosh darn it they needed a break too!

This was supposed to be their golden years, not their 'go back to start' years!

Except it wasn't going back to the start, it was hard mode.

"Ready to rumble dear?" Rita asked her greying husband.

"About as much as you sweetheart." Lynn half heartedly laughed.

"That bad?"

"It's lunchtime dear."

Rita checked her watch, and sure enough it was just about time for the children to awaken from their slumber and form the multi-headed beast that ate through their seemingly bountiful stocks like piranhas. She quickly leaned over to her husband…

"Do you think we could just back out before they see us? Maybe say we got stuck in traffic?"

"Doubt it dear," Lynn pointed to a tired looking Lana marching to them with eager anticipation. The frazzled look in her eyes told them she was looking for volunteers to feed the Hungry Hydra awaiting indoors.

"Dang it."

* * *

**Lunchtime:**

"Mo sweet!" Lari demanded, attempting to wiggle out of her highchair to snatch another helping.

"Nah little dude, you've had yours already." Lana denied, holding the bowl of yogurt with soft fruit mix away. "Leave some for everyone else or you go in time out again."

"Nooo!"

Luan rolled her eyes, and instead returned her attention to the five she had spawned. "Okay girls, who wants come _cultural_ enrichment! Geddit?"

The five looked at her with all the incomprehension near-toddlers could muster.

"B-because it's yogurt and it…"

Liby grabbed her bowl and dunked herself with it.

"Dang it."

Lucy meanwhile was proving her worth in gold as a single glare from her unseen eyes convinced Lani to keep her fingers to herself, even as Lupa gleefully slurped down her own snack. The troublemaker table was tamed before the Spooky Sister's silent admonishment.

Alas, the main table could claim no such success.

"Gibe sweet!" Lyra pulled at the plastic bowl. "You fat!"

"No fat!" Lemy protested, pulling back. "You _mean_!"

Some might have called putting the twins together a bad decision. All Lincoln would need to do would be to ask where else they could be put considering the state of the rest of the table and the critic would be hard pressed to answer him.

His parents had quickly claimed the currently resident 'half-breeds' (Lisa's term) for themselves. They knew that (with the exception of Darna, who somehow kept managing to stab herself in the face with a spoon) the seven semi-squalling infants were currently eating their own tummy-preferred mush. Their schizophrenic approach to eating, sometimes opening wide with eagerness only to suddenly refuse like they were offended was only a minor challenge compared to the older near toddlers gathered around the other end of the table.

There Lana, Lisa and Lincoln were attempting to corral the assorted children into eating _only_ their portion of the sweet snack. As per usual the children were divvied up by sibling pairs, with Lisa handling two sets with the assistance of her own spawn. Lana with Lari and Loan, the former providing a contest while the latter quietly slurped down her treat before Lari got any ideas. Lincoln was assigned to the Loud/Sharp (as while Luna and Sam were both willing to hyphenate their names, they both agreed their awesomely alliterative appellations could not be sacrificed) twins.

In theory some of the pairs could be broken up for a new dynamic, but any of the twins would gradually get grouchier the longer they were apart anyway.

"Lyra?" Lincoln asked her, and the bright eyed girl instantly looked at him. "Did you already have yours?"

Lyra's eyes suddenly looked at the bowl instead of his.

"I think you did…"

"Nooo…"

He extended a hand and gently stroked her slightly sticky hair, "why don't you let Lemy have some too? If you eat his it'll be bad and you'll have to go in time out."

Lyra looked up with big eyes, mouth open in shock.

"But I don't want to do that, we have playtime soon and I know you want to play Xylophone right?"

Lyra nodded "yea…."

"Then let Lemy have his sweet, and we can all play together okay?" He stroked her hair again and Lyra reluctantly released the bowl with sticky fingers.

Alas, Lemy had spent the entire conversation riveted on getting his sweets back, and thus continued pulling with all the might his little body could muster. The sudden release of pulling force from the other end of the bowl could only result in one thing, and Lemy Loud was once again suddenly wearing his meal.

Unfortunately this time it was unplanned and so Luna's boy also now had yogurt in his eyes. But not to worry, his big salty tears quickly fixed that.

* * *

**Bathtime:**

Bathing the twenty odd children was actually far easier than one might expect.

The main bath attached to the original shower could fit up to five children at a time, and two parents could wash a semi-consenting child within a minute or two. Thus in a ten minute bath each child would get a minute of actual washing, then around nine of aquatic play before being towelled off to join whatever parent was on 'clean child' watch to make sure they didn't dirty up too fast again by playing with the 'dirty child' group.

The dirty children would be watched outside by two or three parents until the group shrunk enough that the clean children needed more than one parent to watch them in the living room. The process would continue until all the children were clean (enough).

It was a simple process, if prone to minor annoyances. But the conveyer belt of cleanliness had a major flaw:

They needed to get the children in there in the first place.

"No bah!" Lari protested.

"Ye no bah!" Lacy giggled, then promptly ran off with her half sister.

Lincoln pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. " _Every time_."

"Do not stress yourself elder male sibling unit," Lisa comforted. "The majority of the offspring remain cordoned off in the dining room, aside from Lari and Lacy Loud there should be a minimum of 'wrangling' as it were."

Her words spoke the truth; after _many_ escape attempts post lunch the family had taken to installing retractable fences to the dining room entrances. In the process of lending credence to Luan's 'Baby Jail' assessment the fences would be closed off after the last child was added to the assorted tables and were roughly the waist height to the average adult (thus Lynn would still need to hop over them).

Alas Lari and Lacy were both _just_ tall enough to grab some of the lower structural railing to climb over the fence, and while Lari would be easily captured the more athletic daughter of Lynn Loud Jr could outmanoeuvre almost anyone. Sure enough a glance revealed her retreating form scampering into the living room, where there was plenty of little places to escape an adult's hands from.

Lari however was still getting to her feet on the other side of the fence, and a single bound from a very done-with-today-Lana resulted in the pale-haired girl being captured post haste.

"Alright squirt, you know the penalty for running." Lana hopped back over with ease and deposited the suddenly struggling girl to her father's arms.

"Nooo! No wanna pee!" She gasped.

"I'm sorry Lari… we all want things we can't have," Lincoln replied in a grave voice and he sat down and moved his fingers to her belly.

It only took thirty seconds for the experienced fingers to reduce the protesting girl to despairing giggles, then a wet diaper as she couldn't help but urinate despite all the determination a year and a bit old could have.

This was the agreed upon punishment, for while no Loud child really _liked_ their baths they also liked having a wet diaper even less and would go without a fight if it meant being changed. Thus any child that pulled a Lacy and ran wouldn't be put in time out, but rather whichever parent caught the scampering child would take them to Lincoln, whose well trained hands would reduce them to a ruined diaper in seconds.

Lacy knew this punishment well, and honestly he was starting to think she actually liked it for how often she ran. But either way there could be only one end to this defiance.

"Nooo, wet…" Lari whinged with a fat lip as she waddled off to sulk in a corner.

"Alright that's one down," Lynn Sr counted. "Whose turn is it to get Lynn's tyke?"

"I think we have bigger problems dear," Rita sighed.

Lincoln blinked and blearily looked over to the collection of children milling about post-feeding and noticed…

"Didn't we have more of these today?" He blinked again.

"You would be correct elder brother," Lisa dryly remarked, and then pointed to the open vent. There a bright green socked foot could be seen escaping deeper into the vents. "It would appear that we shall need to employ Lulu for retrieval."

* * *

**Playtime:**

Fortunately, it didn't take too long to find the escaped inmates. The fact that they had just eaten meant that within a few minutes they needed to use their potties, which resulted in a net neutrality as now there was very little to tickle out of the small criminals.

One of Lisa's cleaning robots was sent into the vents anyway, just in case they'd left a 'surprise' inside.

Now an hour after Lunch the children were freshly cleaned and ready to ruin it all with their much anticipated playtime, which they did with aplomb in the again cleared dining room.

Within that chamber of scattered toys and parents, the children happily played with and against each other.

In one corner Lupa appeared to be cackling while Lily's triplets did some weird, wobbling ritual dance around a half scared-half entranced Loan. Lari ran by giggling as she was chased by Lacy, who appeared to be wearing a strange monster costume with only her face exposed in its mouth, and Lacy in turn was pursued by a grinning Lizy with a small net. Lincoln internally questioned where she'd gotten the costume until the 'costume' blinked and Lincoln realised that she was in fact wearing Lulu like a stretchy cartoon dog from that show they liked.

Luan was given a brief break as Lisa took over her quintuplets, instructing them how make the most satisfyingly destructible wooden block structure determined by the scientific method. Or at least attempting to until they educated her in turn by including themselves in the foundation.

Then her.

Rita and Lynn Sr were occupied with the majority of the infants, mainly focusing on Darna as she found new ways to hurt herself in spite of logic, reason and round edges. At one point they had put a leash on her just to avoid accidents, but the infant had nearly lynched herself within minutes.

However one of the new infants wasn't with her fellow half breeds. Rather one Lina Sharp (apparently Lina 'Loud' made Luna slightly sour due to her origins) was currently sitting in her father's lap as he oversaw her fellow Loud/Sharp siblings in a casual 'music lesson'.

Lyra carefully dinged each key to her Xylophone as her father read out a music note from a booklet that Luna had made, on each key was a little paper with the corresponding note written on it. Meanwhile Lemy attempted some vocals.

"A…" Lincoln spoke and held the letter for a moment.

Lyra dutifully smacked the correct key with just a little too much force for the volume to match the rest they had been going for. Frowning she tried again, this time going just under.

"Ayyy!" Lemy tried to sing, but didn't really grasp what note he was supposed to be making.

Lina just clapped.

Lyra's face screwed up, but just as Lincoln thought she would throw the Xylophone aside she looked up. "Mo!"

"Oh, ah; G…".

This time she got it.

* * *

**Missing mommy at Bedtime** :

"So how are my girls doing?" Lori's voice was a bit tinny as it came through the tablet.

"Mama!" Lari gleefully declared, tugging Loan to see. "Mamamamamama!"

"Mama…" Loan touched at the tablet herself, a happy upturn to her mouth.

"They're happy to see you it seems," Lincoln dryly remarked, holding the tablet just in reach of the twins. He stood with his arms resting on their cot's raised enclosing fence, letting the light of the tablet bearing Lori Loud's visage wash over the two who shared the cot. In turn, allowing the camera to get a good view of the blonde duo.

Across the room some of the other adults were with their assigned sibling pairs, bearing their tablets and reunions in hand. As the event would progress, they would finish up and go to each nursery to let the kids say goodnight to their parents through the tablets before shutting off the lights and either settling down for their night's watch (if it was their night) or going downstairs for a few hours of Anything But Dealing With the Babies.

"I bet they are," Lori laughed. "Oh I missed you two! But were you good for Lincoln?"

"Yeaaa," Lari nodded.

"Oo wincoln?" Loan asked in visible confusion.

"… Daddy." Lori sighed. "Daddy with white hair."

"Dada!" Lari confirmed and pointed at the man behind the tablet.

"Dada?" Loan looked up. "Dada wincoln?"

"Yes, that Daddy is Lincoln." Lori sounded positively defeated.

Lari looked up past the tablet with an accusing glare. "Dada make me pee!"

"Did you run off again?"

Lari looked at something else. "Nooo…"

"Did you really though?"

"… yea."

Lori had brought over the twins as she and Bobby needed to travel for work for a week, and while her non-incestuous offspring were more than welcome to stay (Lincoln alone desperately wanted to just be an Uncle rather than Uncle-Dad for once), they were taken in by the Casagrande clan to avoid even further overcrowding. Lincoln understood, they were near capacity even for them this week, but it would have been nice to see his nieces and nephews.

"… and was Daddy nice to you too?" Lincoln turned back in just in time for the verdict.

"Dada make me pee!"

"Apart from that."

"… nmmm." Lari folded her arms and pouted.

"I'll put that down as a firm 'okay' then," Lori sounded amused. "And what about you Loan?"

Loan looked up at Lincoln, then back down to the tablet, but only fidgeted.

"Don't feel too bad Lincoln," Lori assured him. "She's like that with everyone."

There was a muted sound from the tablet, and suddenly the twins became active.

"Pa! Pa!" Lari crowed. "Wan Papa!"

Loan nodded fervently.

Lori sounded more confused than hurt by their sudden enthusiasm. "… You've had Lincoln all day though-"

"No Dada! Papa!" Lari confirmed.

Alas, Loan felt the need to clarify. " _Brown_ Dada!"

Lincoln froze, and Lori was evidently horrified into silence.

Bobby could suddenly be heard laughing his arse off through the tablet.

* * *

After another fifteen minutes of Bobby bonding with Lori's twins (much more easily than they did with _him_ Lincoln somewhat sourly noted, _is this what Luna feels like?_ ) and another ten after switching to the Casagrande's so they could exchange babble with their siblings, it was Lacy and Lynn III's turn.

"So mini-me, did you give your Dad some good cardio?"

Lacy rapidly nodded with an open mouthed-grin.

"I should have known it was you behind this," Lincoln groaned.

"You're such a good girl," Lynn ignored him. "Daddy could get fat if you don't exercise him, so make sure you give him a workout every day!"

"Dang it Lynn!"

Again, ignored. "And how's my nerd doin'? Have you been exercising your brain?"

Lynn III gazed up at her mother with a grin and pulled out some paper with crudely drawn letters on them, "I do these!"

"No really?" Lynn gasped. "No I don't think so, Lisa did them for you didn't she?"

"No!" The child protest with a grin.

"Daddy then?"

"Nooo!"

"Well it can't have been you, they're too good for someone so little!"

"I'm big!"

"Is she big Lincoln?"

Lincoln appraised the smaller child. "She could be bigger."

Lacy giggled, "Lynn little!"

Lincoln supressed a grin. "Aww, she's like you in more than name!"

"Shut it Stincoln."

* * *

The final set for the night were Luna and Sam's children, the three now shared a cot and as a result Lina would often end up as a toy between the twins. Tonight Lemy had her sitting on him in imitation of his father earlier, while Lyra had somehow managed to sneak the Xylophone into the cot.

"Hi little dudes, did ya' miss Momtie and… Mom?"

"I'm pretty sure I'm just Mom," Sam's voice confirmed. "Unless _my_ mom cheated and we're sisters or something."

"Ew, not gonna think about that." Luna's voice gagged.

The three gathered in the soft light nonetheless, Lemy taking centre stage with Lina on his lap.

"Mama!" He laughed.

"He's been missing you today," Lincoln confirmed. "Didn't even want to eat his breakfast."

"Aww, sorry little dude; we missed you too!" Luna's voice faltered. "I promise we'll come home soon."

Lemy nodded and Lina noticed the screen, and reached up while making bubbles.

"Hello Lina," Sam's voice hushed a bit as if she was worried she'd scare her away. "Did you miss me?"

Lemy actually stood up and used his little arms to try and lift Lina up, Lincoln lowered the screen a bit so he didn't fall over and little Lina touched the screen. She batted at it and made a sad gurgle.

"I think that's a yes," Lincoln said quietly. "She eats and plays, but she still misses you Sam."

"I-I do too." Sam swallowed. "I'm just gonna take a minute-"

"Sure babe, I'll take over here for a bit."

"… Is she going to be alright?"

"It's not your fault, but she's feeling the separation." Luna admonished. "Maybe don't poke that wound if ya can help it."

"That's fair-"

Lyra banged at the Xylophone.

Repressing an eyeroll Lincoln drew the tablet back so the camera view included Lyra again, Lemy and Lina sitting down as Lemy's legs gave in and they fussed together. "I think Lyra has something to show you."

True to his word Lyra tapped a key, letting out a brief 'A' note, then a longer 'G', then a 'C' and so on. She her timing was awful and most of the notes she played were off by volume compared to each other. As she went on she forgot more and more of the notes until the 'composition' was unrecognisable as the song Luna had wrote for her.

Lincoln was tempted to try and guide her, but some sniffling from the tablet gave him pause. Lemy could see the screen clearly though.

"Mama sad!" He gasped.

"No, Mama _very_ happy," Luna's wet voice affirmed. "Mama proud."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here we go.
> 
> This chapter serves as a simple introduction to the family and how it works. For those that didn't read Lisa Loud's funtime machine, the basic differences in this timeline can be boiled down to:
> 
> The SK's are a result of one of Lisa's experiments.
> 
> Lincoln and the sisters never slept together (barring one deviation that will come up later...) , so their relationships are still platonic.
> 
> And all of the babies were born around the same time and when their parents were either close to, or well into adulthood so their lives haven't been destroyed.
> 
> Any other details should be able to be easily gleaned from the story as it progresses
> 
> For those of you who have read LLFM but not this story on FF.net and are wondering why Lynn has two girls, I eventually chose L3 over a male character because of simple preference for her character over any male SK's and a dislike of making my own OC's. In universe her gender was due to even Lisa Loud's super science being unable to repress the Loud tendency towards females.


	2. LLFM: Months after the Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the first chapter that was actually posted for this story, and it serves as a sort of prototype for the story as a whole. Honestly, the structure is clumsy compared to the others and does not really represent the rest of the story well, which is why the previous chapter was used as the first in this version. However it is the original, and it is where this story begins after LLFM ends.
> 
> The better structured chapters will resume immediately after this one.
> 
> The entirely empthasised sections that don't denote thought or emphasis were primarily written by an associate of mine who uses the fanfiction handle 'Nuuo'.

**Lisa Loud's Funtime Machine: Months after the epilogue:**

_"DON'T BLAME ME! YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF!"_

_"Still Lincoln, why did you donate your jizz again? You knew Lisa was gonna do something dumb like this."_

_"Ha ha, well..." Lincoln looks on nervously as Lisa practices her lamaze breathing. "Lisa here asked for more samples in exchange to use her VR Goggles again, ha ha, funny right?"_

_"You donated your sperm, TO USE LISA'S MASTURBATION MACHINE AGAIN!"_

_"Hey- you jumped on the machine again too!"_

_"I had a good reason!"_

_"So did I; I really, really, really, like futa."_

_"LUNA! I BLAME YOU THE MOST FOR THIS! I'M GOING TO BURN! BLARNEY!"_

"Oh c'mon, that was years ago!" Luna protested. "You can'r-"

"SWEET AZIMOV'S ANUS!" The scientist wailed. as she attempted to push out child three of four "THIS. IS. AGONIZING!"

"You get what you FUCKING deserve Leese!" Lola cackled.

"Not until she's passed ours she hasn't," growled Lori, her several month swollen belly jumping a bit with a kick. Apparently being told off the first time hadn't stuck. "The second her uterus is functional we're all using that teleport thing to stick the _rest_ in too."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," countered Lincoln. "I mean; the rest of you are pretty far along now anyway and we don't know-"

"Brah, do you wanna see if you can fit 'em in instead?" The twin bearing Luna glared at him, her accent rough with salt. " 'Cause the ones in there are on 'er, but you gave 'er the jizz the second an' other times knowin' what she was up to so these are on you too."

"Yeah, let's see if we can't make history!" Lana grinned.

"He- you all went back on the machine knowing she'd probably try this again too!" Protested the outnumbered man.

"So it's OUR fault Bruv, is that it?" The hormonal rocker glared at him.

"Oh come on you guys," the happily pregnant Lily giggled. "You're being butts about this, it's way better than you're making it out to be!"

"Also you knocked up Lily!" Lori snapped. "Three! Times! If we didn't need you for a fucking babysitter (forever) we'd literally have a made a lynch mob already."

"Or just castrated you," Luan hummed, horrifically widened with quintuplets because combining apparently homing sperm with Loud Girl ovaries was fucking evil. "You know, unload the gun..."

"Oh I get it!" Leni giggled. "Because Linky's Little Linky's seeds are-"

"We all understand Leni," Lori reassured her. "Of course, I don't see why we don't actually do that anyway- it's not like Ronnie Anne wants them anymore-"

Lincoln sweated bullets. "Okay first, a low blow about Ronnie, secondly-"

"It's a low blow for a reason," Lori smirked as she pulled some scissors from her purse. "GET HIM GIRLS!"

Lincoln yelped and promptly ran off, narrowly dodging half a dozen grasping hands and their waddling owners.

"Girls come on!" Lily whinged. "You just haven't felt the stuff in you properly, just it a chance; it'll change your life!"

"IT ALREADY HAS!" A horde shouted back.

Lily just shook her head, if only they tried the stuff directly they might have understood they were trying to cook the golden goose. Beside her Lisa still screamed.

"ARGHH! YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

"They're gone now."

"YO- oh," suddenly the screaming stopped, but the flushed checks and sweat remained upon the scientist. "It seems I am somewhat distracted at the moment, thank you Lily. My trachea was becoming inflamed."

"It's fine, but when are you planning on telling them about your... 'happy birthday'?"

"Ahh," Lisa calmly raised a finger. "That is an excellent shorthand, but the actual name is-"

"Orgasmic Birth Serum?" Lily guessed.

"Not quite, but it is accurate enough." Lisa settled in with a smirk as her contractions started up again, her flush rapidly returning. The telltale twitches that had hidden her lie from her family were easily hidden by the assorted other contortions her face would soon be again pulling. "I think shortly after the experiment, which includes the incubation after all, has concluded will do nicely. I wouldn't want to rob them of their precious catharsis after all."

* * *

Alas, while Lisa's invention would provide solace to her, and make her celebrated across by all women around the world in the future it would also induce a terrible problem months later.

"It's not gay if-"

"Elder Brother Unit, if you have to use 'it's not gay if;' then the thing in question is unquestionably homosexual in nature, street term: flaming."

"She's not wrong bruv, trust me; I'm qualified!"

_"You're only half gay Luna! Look at this youtube video!  
Only less than 10% of the futa is male so it's only 10% gay." _

_"That futa has a dick longer than her body Linc. That's like more than 50% gay."_

"As fascinating as I find this argument the two of you have been having it for the past ten months in some capacity," Lisa dryly remarked. "I would suggest accepting that neither of you can reconcile your viewpoints and being done with it."

"Nah fuck that," Luna groused. "But I'm sick of debating how dicks aren't meant to be on girls-"

"BLARNEY LUNA! YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

"And I've been regrettin' every fuckin' second since." Luna put up her hand. "All right, all for saying that if it has a dick and you're a dude that's into it that makes you gay put your hands up!"

The Lab was currently filled with half a dozen people, sadly most of them were ineligible to vote as they were assorted Loud spawn. As it stood of the three there only Luna held her hand up.

"Aww c'mon Leese, you gotta take an objective view on this!" Luna whined, still holding her hand up.

"She is," Lincoln replied smugly. "It's obvious that if it has a vagina then there's nothing gay about it."

"Of there _definitely_ is dear brother, but I would argue that such a being would be intersex and thus outside the standard social definition of homosexuality." Lisa calmly grabbed little Lacy before she escaped her crib.

"So... I think that means that I win?" Luna asked.

"No, she said it wasn't homosexual; so I win, and even if I don't it's your own fault for fucking me with a toy until I broke- I used to be normal you know!" Lincoln folded his arms and glared.

The endless argument would have continued if not a sudden beep from Lisa's computer, a glance at which turned the scientist's skin pale.

"... Leese, why do you look like Lucy?" Luna questioned.

"That's an alert I put in place in case of a Code Pink." Lisa shuddered, and pressed a button. In seconds a series of metallic shutters came down over the house, and the premise was sealed.

"I haven't heard that before, how come we're in lockdown mode?" Lincoln moved over the pile of infants now slowly being roused from their rest.

"It is a protocol I put in place after Lily's... incident." Lisa moved to her computer and checked the cameras.

"By 'incident' do mean the one when she nearly came her brains out with her kids, cause that was just weird," Luna shuddered. "I thought that stuff was a godsend but seein' it in action was somethin' else."

"Indeed, I should have considered her own proclivities before administering the serum," Lisa shook her head. "But in my defence-"

"Nah sis, no defence. Happy juice makes baby coming out feel nice, raging pervert makes happy juice way more effective, baby coming out is bigger than any dick. Even I can see what happens next," Luna sighed. "But I thought she was kinda' brain dead, what's happened now with her?"

"Firstly Lily wasn't brain dead, merely recovering from the experience," Lisa corrected. "Street term: afterglow. Secondly: This code is something I put in place once I thought ahead and realised that with her persona her first priority upon recovering her senses would be-"

The steel door to the lab suddenly opened up, revealing Lily Loud in a hospital gown and with several broken straps adoring her limbs, a crazed look in her eyes to complete the getup.

"Dang it, forgot to change the security codes." Lisa muttered.

"Hiii big bro..." Lily sung. "You wouldn't believe the wonderful dream I had.."

Lincoln tried to hide behind Luna, who knew a lost cause when she one and valiantly preserved the lives of the innocent by shoving him at the crazy sister.

"Oh hi Lily, you know we were all worried about you?" Lincoln tried to smile, but felt himself wither before Lily's eyes. "You had the kids and screamed so loud-"

"I know... it. Was! WONDERFUL!" She squeed. "Everyone needs to try it, but before then _I_ _need_ to try it aga-"

"Look Lily you already have three," Lincoln tried to be an adult for once. "I know Lisa's thing probably felt nice but-"

"No butts Linky" she giggled and suddenly pulled him towards her with steel fingers. "This is for me..."

"Computer close the door!" Lisa called out as Lincoln was pulled through, his look of betrayal being the last they would see of him for days.

"Is he gonna be all right?"

"I can probably fix the worst of the damage."

"Probably?"

"Feel free to be a hero dear sister."

"... Ya know what; he got 'imself into this mess so fuck 'im"

"I believe Lily has that covered already."

* * *

But of course, Lisa didn't entirely win without a cost, for it was revealed that her desired David had a fetish that was beyond even her capacity to detach from:

"Holding hands is a normal part of-"

"This is why Santiago left you."

"Ronnie still comes over!"

"To copulate brother, not to share your... perversions."

"That's just... look; we're having a rough patch at the moment because of the kids, but we still love each other!"

"When was the last time she said that?"

"..."

"..."

"... I'm going to check the kids, I think one needs changing."


	3. The Next Generation

**The next generation**

"… So Lacy it is." Lynn nodded to the swaddled, sleeping, human shaped blob of meat behind the glass. Within the nursery there was a multitude of children, the five new children that now made up the next Loud generation were dispersed across the various tables holding freshly cleaned and swaddled newborns.

Lynn herself technically speaking wasn't supposed to even be walking, having triggered her own labour by speed waddling after Lincoln. However the athlete's absurd tenacity and resilience proved itself once more- even if the nurses were staring at her, waiting for the foolish new mother to pass out.

"And Lynn III?" Lori asked with a tone somewhere between exasperation and amusement.

"Why mess with a winning formula?" The Sports Star grinned, "plus we thought me an' Lola would be having a boy and girl each. But hey, it still works for a girl and who wouldn't want to keep the Lynnster train going!?"

"I would have done the same thing," Lynn the first nodded in appreciation of his daughter's wisdom, prompting an eyeroll from the new grandmother next to him. The majority of the family was currently gathered in the hallway outside the nursery, sans only Lisa who lacked Lynn's stubborn/stupid refusal to remain in a hospital bed.

Some were excited, others were more uncertain, given the children's origins and their own births to come. Lola had yet to say anything, staring down at her twins with some unreadable expression. A little distance away from the rest, a still wary of castration Lincoln looked at the little, darker haired newborn that Lisa had dubbed…

"Lulu." He muttered. "Leia, Londey, Lacy and Lynn."

He was a father now.

Up until this point he was internally half expecting this all to blow over, for it all to be revealed to be some kind of social experiment and none of the sisters were actually pregnant. Lisa would appear, declare her findings were complete before revealing it was all some trick and be pounced on by a near dozen irate victims, Luan and Lori still the only true parents among them.

"… You know; I'm more surprised you didn't name them _both_ after yourself," the long suffering eldest pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Dang," Luna examined the still wide athlete, the other woman holding herself up with seemingly little effort. "Ya know, I've gotta say; I wasn't expectin' ya up so quick, Lisa's not even awake yet."

Lynn snickered, "I'm Lynn Loud, a bit of tummy trouble isn't gonna keep me down."

"I bet the juice didn't hurt though…" Lily gently teased from behind.

"Yeah," Lynn admitted, her eyes going blank for a moment. "Not gonna lie; I didn't wanna take it, but that stuff is amazing. I mean; I'm not even mad at Leese anymore; that's how good it is- what?" She raised her hands at the incredulous siblings around her. "Seriously it is- I know you all heard me in there!"

It was true; even now the nearby maternity ward would emit distressingly sexual moans every time the large, soundproof doors swung open to admit a new mother-to-be. From the very moment Lynn had stopped her distressingly fast waddle (which lay somewhere between hilarious and horrifying, depending if you were the man attempting to retain the gonads she was after) to examine exactly _why_ she felt like she'd wet herself, the athlete was determined to make her way through labour without any anesthesia.

That changed within the first hour.

Lynn was only having one child naturally, Lisa having been 'persuaded' to play incubator for her experiment. However as any woman who has gone through labour would tell the listener; once is more than enough.

Add in that it was a fast delivery, and the pain was rising far faster than even Lynn could tolerate; Lily quickly broke the news about the invention. Lisa had made some kind of weird concoction that upon injection promptly turned the agony of childbirth into a sexually thrilling experience.

Lincoln didn't know the exact details, but from the moment Lily had returned from Lisa's room with the vial and stuck the needle into Lynn's arm (because no nurse would administer it) Lynn's expression rapidly shifted from agony to…

Well. He was still torn about whether or not he should have left the room like the others, and not just because Lynn had nearly broken his hand when he stood beside her in childbirth. Certain incestuous fantasies aside actually witnessing a sibling's raw sexuality is never going to be normal.

Watching your kid get _literally_ cummed out is something else entirely.

He prayed to God that neither Lynn III or Lacy _ever_ found out how they'd been evicted from their first home.

Of course every other woman there had demanded the same thing, and while Lincoln was still in the room at the time he was still too stunned from reality to stop a gleeful Lily from administering a dose to every woman in the ward that she could find a fresh needle for. Honestly considering all the potential problems of injecting an publicly un-trialled drug into a bunch of women in childbirth, he was just happy that the dirty looks from the nurses and Doctors were all they were getting.

For now anyway; he was pretty sure Lisa was going to have to pay off a _lot_ of people.

"Yeah we heard," Lori shook her head. "I'll literally be hearing that in my nightmares."

"Whatever Lori," Lynn practically chirped. "Trust me, all the months of pain and contant pissing and shitting? Worth it. All the stupid shit with the goggles? Still kinda iffy, but you know what; all in the past."

"Why don't you wait and see how you feel _after_ the afterglow wears off," Lori dryly replied.

"No, you don't get it; not yet," Lynn wiped a bit of drool from her lips. "I swear, if I didn't have my sports I'd be finding another guy to-"

"Miss Louds?" A nurse with tight lips called out from a door next to the glass. "Would you or your… family like to hold the children now?"

"Ye- ahem, well of course." The refined model calmed herself before turning to the others. "I'll take Leia and Londey first, then the rest of you can take turns."

"Same here for mine," Lynn nodded, then looked at the nurse. "That's Lacy and mini me- Lynn III."

"I see," if the nurse thought there was anything strange about a woman claiming her nieces as her own then she kept it to herself. _Maybe she's thinking it's surrogacy?_ "And who will be taking Lulu?"

There was a sudden silence, then Lincoln realised everyone was looking at him. It suddenly dawned on him; Lisa was still sleeping.

At the moment he was Lulu's primary parent.

He looked at the little brown haired baby through the glass.

"I'll be first I guess."

The nurse nodded, "very good. We'll bring them out in a moment."

And so she did, she and a colleague quietly loaded the infants into some special trolley before wheeling it out to them. There Lynn first took Lacy into her arms, and then reunited with her little namesake.

There the new mother stood; a mostly bald, pudgy and still sleeping fresh offspring in each arm. "H-hey little guys."

"Well… I think you'll grow on me." Lola mused as she settled her infants into her surprisingly strong arms. There the blonde twins rested against her. One opened blue eyes- Lincoln's shade and blinked, but didn't really focus on anything before their owner vaguely moved in the direction of warmth.

"Mr Loud?"

Lincoln looked to the nurse, who was holding a swaddled Lulu. Numbly he held out his arms in a long remembered form, echoes of carrying Lily, Lisa and the twins themselves so long ago came to his mind as he held a child of his own for the first time.

"Just be sure to hold up her head," the nurse released her hold as Lincoln let the weight fall into his secure, but gentle grip. Lulu was surprisingly heavy for a newborn and her brown eyes could be seen peeking through her half open lids.

"Hi there Lulu…" he hear himself say. "I'm your Dad. N-nice to meet you?"

Okay that sounded dumb even to him, and he was pretty sure that the others were looking on in disbelief. But when he glanced up he saw just a few chagrined expressions while Leni and Mom's eyes were wet with unshed tears.

"Hey 'Dad'," Lynn nudged him with an elbow. "We're takin' pictures remember. You wanna try and hold 'em?"

"Umm… sure," quickly he sat down on a nearby chair and opened his arms to let Lynn fit their children into his arms. Lulu remained in his lap, held steady by his hands while his bent arms formed makeshift cradles. "Are we sure that-"

"Just let me do it," Lola strode over and calmly placed Leia next to Lacy on the right, and then fit Londey by Lynn III, Lulu and his hands serving as a kind of keystone for the impromptu sibling basket. "All right, who's got the camera?"

"I do. Lisa's experiments or not, I've been waiting for you to have children!" Rita Loud stepped forward, her voice thick with her announcement and Lynn Sr's ancient analogue camera in hand. "Now; Lynn, Lola, stand beside Lincoln, we're going to get you all in one shot."

Lola raised an eyebrow at being ordered as an adult, but acquiesced. Lynn, still running hot on her 'Happy Birthday' happily waddled over and stood on Lincoln's right, resting a hand on his shoulder as Lola did the same to his left.

Rita carefully adjusted the long obsolete, but traditional camera and stepped back. "Now; everyone say- OH GOD!"

To her credit- that is precisely what the participants of that photo said at that moment, and their reaction was forever recorded in the first photo of the firstborns of that generation. For Lulu opened her eyes properly, and upon seeing the outside world her mother had 'told' her so much about during her inter-uteri programming she couldn't help but smile.

With every one of her mouths.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the end Lola's second child was indeed female. I did manage to find many Sin Kids to fit into the remaining slots, but there were few males for any of them and while Londey did have a simple character, she did have quite a few comics that showcased her well enough for me to get a good grasp on her. So the expectation from LLFM was ultimately subverted, but considering that Lemy and Lyle came along anyway I suppose it all evens out.


	4. Understanding Arrangements

**Understanding Arrangements**

Lisa Loud awoke from her post-partum rest period with a pleasant afterglow, the torment of childbirth having been replaced with a pleasurable high that would drive a lesser woman to helpless addiction. Which was actually a pressing concern considering she was planning to market the formula within the foreseeable future.

_Note to self; investigate regulatory options to prevent birthing addicts from becoming a societal-_

She found herself jostled, someone was lightly shaking her arm.

"Leese, are you awake?"

She was indeed awake, but she had hoped to restrict knowledge of that fact for some time. Alas, her brother's voice was in the tonal frequency that indicated he thought she needed to know something, so she sighed and reached for where she remembered depositing her glasses before her 'torment' had begun.

Granted she didn't strictly need them, but the lenses had a number of features built into them that were imminently useful for a woman in her many professions. And as she blinked her eyes into focus she saw a set of figures surrounding her bed.

To her left were two of her sibling units, each bearing two new relations. Evidently Lynn had managed to push herself into an early labour somehow- given the speed at which was she attempting to neuter their brother unit and their advanced pregnancy it was practically inevitable regardless. Furthermore from her general demeanour it could be easily expected that she had used the formula to bypass the majority of her discomfort- Lily likely 'spilled the beans' for the sake of either aiding her sibling unit through the birthing pains or to simply further her perversions.

Likely both.

Lola of course had been spared the rigour of the nine month bloating and embarrassment that came with acting as an incubator, and now she held two of the four infants Lisa had housed. None of the infants both any overt signs of malformation or tampering, and the scientist was placed to place a nominal check on her mental to do list.

To her right though was her brother and parental units. Her parents were flushed and visibly excited, likely driven to emotion by the birth of their new grand children. Lincoln meanwhile seemed to be more composed as expected from his generally calm demeanour, and within his arms was…

A swaddled infant with her hair colour.

"Ah," Lisa nodded. "I see you have brought S-12."

Lincoln blinked and looked down as if confirming that he was holding said infant. "… You mean Lulu?"

"Yes, that was the name I submitted," Lisa held out her arms to receive her personal offspring. "If you don't mind?"

"Uh, sure," he hesitated to transfer the girl. "But, there was this _thing_ earlier-"

Lisa Loud was a patient woman under most circumstances that warranted it. Today however was the day she had spent nine months preparing for and she was eager to observe the culmination of her Programmed Organics theories personally. "I'm sure you can explain after you have transferred my offspring."

"I-" Lincoln exhaled through his nose, indicating some measure of frustration for her lack of conformity to social norms. "Okay."

He gently cradled the infant with all the expected care for the smaller 'human', Lisa noted that most of the others in the room subconsciously moved back slightly. Intriguing, had S-12 already displayed her enhancements?

Her question was quickly answered. As Lincoln passed the swaddled infant, S-12's eyes opened from the motion and affixed themselves upon the receiving human. The little 'human' looked over the larger with an intellect that was far beyond that of her peers, noted the hair and eye colour and moved one of her eyes to compare them to what she could see of herself in the warped reflection of the hospital bed rail. It only took her two thirds of a second to be sure in her conclusions- and Lulu Loud looked back to her progenitor with both eyes.

And promptly 'smiled' again.

"Jesus fuckin' _Christ_ ," Luna shuddered, her sentiment echoed with the other sisters gathered further back in the room.

Lisa held out her offspring for a casual examination, and found no aberrations beyond what had been installed. She met eyes with her child of science and smiled. "Why hello S-12, I've been waiting a long time for this day as well."

"Dang sweetie, she scared the cripes out of us," Lynn Sr uncomfortably chucked. "The hospital went into shutdown for half an hour even."

True enough, the facility was still getting back to regular operation- Lisa's name being the only reason Lulu hadn't been taken under security for quarantine.

"Are you okay sweetheart?" Rita leaned forward and touched her daughter's leg. "I'm sure you can fix whatever's wrong with her but you don't have to hide-"

"Nah, she's fine cause she _knew._ " Lynn's eyes narrowed at the genius. "Not even you're cold enough to see _that_ on your kid and not freak."

"Of _course_ she knew," Lola huffed. "There's no way something like that happens naturally."

Lincoln was looking at her with something… hurt? "Leese?"

Lisa Loud regarded her familial units and decided a calm, practical approach would work best. "S-12 had certain… ailments due to the nature of her conception."

"She was inbred." Lori's hands twitched as they cradled her swelled stomach. "Of course _something_ would go wrong-"

"It was a consequence of my admittedly reckless approach of directly injecting Lincoln's semen," Lisa interjected. "The sperm provided to everyone else was screened by my equipment to ensure that what harmful defects there were was removed from the supply used in the 'incident'. There _was_ another exception with Lily, but I have already confirmed no defects have occurred in her progeny."

The room relaxed slightly- but Lincoln stared at the still open and undulating toothy 'flower' in place of Lulu's regular mouth. "… That's not a defect is it Leese."

There was no question in his voice.

"No," Lisa looked down at S-12 with another smile. "I corrected the initial deformity within the first trimester with ease- but I chose to replace the damaged code with something more effective than simple human DNA."

Lincoln's mouth tightened. "Leese…"

"I took sufficient precautions," Lisa dismissed. "A thousand simulations under varying conditions to ensure that there was no chance it could harm her in any way."

"You could have just _fixed_ the DNA," Lincoln bluntly accused. "You're smart to do this- you're smart enough to do that."

"True, but she will be the better for her enhancements." Lisa calmly replied and was about to continue with a list of how Lulu had been improved, and why they would allow her a more fruitful life when Lincoln's expression cut through to her. There was a mix of emotions, the expected horror, the confusion and…

Fear.

Lisa's mind put together the obvious, and for just a moment she cursed her own intellectual tendencies.

"I promise Lincoln," she insisted. "I have not hurt Lulu, she's going to be fine- no matter what happens."

Lincoln's jaw clenched, then released as he looked at the wiggling abomination. "Can you change her back?"

"If she agreed to it." Lisa nodded.

"Agreed?" Lincoln turned back to her.

"She has rudimentary mental abilities, but I would not consider her capable of making such a decision for a great many years yet. I admit that I was… overly _enthusiastic_ in making these changes in the first place without considering her consent." Some feelers from Lulu's throat reached towards Lisa's face, and started tapping around. "But as you can see she is none the worse for them."

"Leese…" Lynn groaned. "She been out for less than a day and she's already nearly shut the hospital down!"

"And nearly gave me a heart attack," Lynn Sr pressed a hand to his chest. "I swear…"

"I will be acting as her personal physician, she will never need to go a hospital in the foreseeable future." Lisa offered. "Additionally I will be able to employ a harmless restraint of sorts to prevent her enhancements from effecting her daily life until she is old enough to decide herself."

Lola frowned, looking at her own children.

"I should also note that I have performed no post conception alterations upon any of the other children," Lisa quickly informed.

"Better not have…" Lynn muttered, pulling away from the bed a bit. "Seriously Leese- your own _kid_?"

"Will have a better starting position than anyone else on the planet- even compared to myself." Lisa curtly replied, tiring of the opposition. "If nothing else I believe that you can all appreciate that sentiment of desiring that for your progeny."

The room quieted, the low murmur dying out.

Finally Lincoln spoke up once more. "Let me see her again."

He held his hands out, his face impossible to read. Even Lisa's own careful examination couldn't reveal any obvious intent.

Still though, she handed the little body back to her father's grip. Lulu's eyes widened a bit as her feelers lost track of her mother's face, but relaxed when Lincoln turned her around to face him.

The two feelers bumped into his shoulder first, then traced their way to the skin of his neck. They pocked and prodded for a bit before following the curves of his throat up to his jaw, then the fleshy tips traced out his chin, lips, nose, cheeks and eyes. They flinched away when they got close to the blue orbs, but stayed around his face- just feeling around for details.

"What's she doin' Leese?" Luna queried with a note of worry.

"Learning," Lisa informed. "She has been… informed about certain details of the real world, but she has yet to properly experience anything from outside of her previous 'accommodations'."

Lincoln sat down in a cheap hospital chair close to the window as Lulu continued her 'observations', drawing her body into one arm. He raised his free hand to one of the feelers, and gently brushed it with a single finger.

The feeler twitched, then turned to follow the hand. Lincoln let her trace the finger, then he twitched it a bit. The feeler flinched back and Lulu let out a little whine, the other tendril jerking back.

Lori stared at him, "what are you doing?"

Lincoln didn't answer, instead remaining still. Lulu's tendrils remained in the open, and slowly drifted back to his face and hand, this time he started moving slowly- letting the abomination get used to his movements before he started tracing the tendrils in turn.

Apparently they were sensitive.

"Hue hue hue!" A wheezy little sound emitted from the inhuman throat.

"Did she just…"

"Laugh? Yeah, she's laughing." Luan nodded.

Sure enough, while the rest of her face was unreadable thanks to her nature, her two brown eyes had a happy look to them.

Lincoln nodded. "… Okay."

"Okay?" Lynn stared at him. "Okay what?"

" 'Okay' to my suggested arrangement I should imagine," Lisa nodded in satisfaction. "It should-"

"But no more 'modifications'," Lincoln's eyes snapped to Lisa. "And you're going to work with the rest of us to help raise her like a person. She's _not_ an experiment she's-"

"Our daughter." Lisa nodded. "I promise that I never thought otherwise."

A door opened, letting through a frazzled looking nurse bearing a clipboard. She looked up at Lisa's last comment, "ah, so this is the father? We were told you weren't- nevermind, if you're here would you like to be put on the birth certific-"

Her eyes looked over the white haired man and the weird suction cups that were stuck to his face, then followed down the attached 'strings' to their source.

The nurse had already been up on night shift, so it took her a moment to properly understand that she wasn't seeing things. She was a medical worker, so she'd seen her fair share of horrifying bodies and cruelly cut short lives. Alas, while the poor nurse was prepared for _many_ things, little Lulu's exposed eldritchian orifice was not one of them.

"WHAT THE FUCK!?"

And thus the Hospital went into lockdown again.


	5. Luna's Labour

**Luna's Labour**

Lori's births had been relatively uneventful, the experienced mother's organs were well used to the trials of labour at this point and the potential pain that became pleasure was at a minimal. She squealed and screamed of course, but only needed a few hours to come back to embarrassed rationality.

Leni was reduced to some deranged, happy laughter; being a first time mother her own pelvis was not as ready as Lori's was. She needed a full day to recover, but snapped out of any remaining afterglow silliness upon being presented with her children.

Luna Loud, having neither the previous motherhood or impressively wide hips or either of her elder sisters; was not as lucky.

"Oh God! Oh God! Oh GOOOOOOD!" The normally casually composed, rough voice singer squealed out in an increasingly high pitch as her pleas continued. Her hands crushed the fingers of her beside companions; her wife, one Sam Sharp.

Sam, who had been with her wife since they were practically children had seen Luna in many states; most of which were undignified.

Puking the guts out after they'd tried to drink Chunk under the table? Check.

Nearly getting banned from Wisconsin for **assorted reasons**? Check.

Almost anything they'd done after getting the tour bus for the band? Triple check,

But they all paled in comparison to Luna's current sweaty, bulging eyed self. There upon her hospital bed, being guided by a midwife with a Doctor on standby the musician lay with her bare legs splayed, well abused naughty bits quivering in a state that no theoretical designer probably ever intended them as she slowly but surely pushed her progeny from her body.

Cumming like a faucet all the way to motherhood.

Her head shook in denial; "NONONONO! I DON'T WANNA O ON MY KID!"

But it was far too late for second thought; the drug had been administered (at her own tearful request, the hospital would be sure to point out) and all that was left was for her to endure an unending climax for every second she lay there. For every undulating contraction her eyes bulged and her breath wheezed out as her diaphragm relaxed from the sudden pleasure. She couldn't help but giggle as she desperately sucked in more air that was instantly lost as the next contraction- and near mind-breaking, tickling wave of pleasure crept up her spine. It was way too much, but she couldn't move if she tried, her legs were heavy and even if the babies agreed to stay put each contraction stripped away her strength; leaving the woman as a helpless puddle on a bed.

All she could do; was breath, push and _squeal_.

And crunch the finger bones of both her wife and brother into dust of course. Lincoln Loud himself was wincing in both pain and embarrassment as his sister desperately tried to hold onto her last straps of sanity by crushing her orgasms into his drawing hand (well, former drawing hand at this point). Of course as the father- albeit unintentionally- of the children within his sister ( _how the_ _fuck_ _did we get here? Oh right; Leese_ ) it was traditional that he bear _some_ of the burden of their birth.

Even if no other part of the current situation, be it from Lisa's medicine, Luna's sexuality, the method of conception or certainly the sperm donor of said conception could be described as traditional.

"Just keep pushing Lunes- they've gotta come out some time!" Sam tried to reassure her panicking wife, a shaky grin on her face hopefully plastering over her stunned shock. "And then it's just another one after!"

Luna's eyes rolled to her, face gleaming with sweat; "I! _FUCKING_! **KNOOOOOOW**!" Her voice went high pitched again as another contraction hit. Luna looked to Lincoln with helpless eyes, and the man bravely waded in to try and aid his sister in law.

"It's fine right Luna?" He put on his best 'calm and collected' face. "This all feels good right-"

" _Don't tell me how I'm feeling_!" The woman's whipped around to glare at him, "my _insides_ are coming OUT-"

Lincoln winced as another contraction cut the irate rocker off, her mouth widening into a wordless squeal and her hands tightening again.

"Sorry Luna, I wasn't thinking when I let Lisa-"

" _Noooo_ , really!?" Luna regained her breath, just to berate him again. "You didn't think this shit through-AIEEEHAHAHA! YOUUU DID THIS TO MEEEEHHHHAHAHA!"

The woman's squeals turned to laughter, and the helpless man looked back to Sam, who was giving him a flat look.

"She's not wrong." The blonde rocker affirmed.

"I didn't know she'd keep going after Lynn and Lol-"

"YOU'RE NOT THAT STUPID LINCOLN!" Luna growled. "You just wanted to get your rocks off!"

"What- like you!?" He couldn't help but snap back. Sure Luna was literally giving birth, but he'd been held solely responsible too many times to just swallow it again. "I didn't see anyone _making_ you use the goggles!"

Luna stared at him, and for a moment he thought she was going to reach up and slap him; but then her eyes filled with tears. " _I'm sorry bro_."

Lincoln's fervour instantly melted away as he remembered just how much hormones his big sister was subject to. "I-it's fine- I shouldn't have-"

"No you're right," she sniffled. "I just had to…. Hhhhhuuuggg!" She gasped again.

He felt eyes boring into him, and a quick glanced confirmed a dirty look from The Midwife (who now probably suspected this was an incestuous birth) and daggers practically shooting from Sam's icy eyes.

Luna regained her breath; "I just wanted ta _catch 'em allllll_!"

Well that was just confusing; but from the sudden red in Sam's face it made sense to her at least. He knew that that she'd used a set of goggles with her wife at some point even if (so far) she'd escaped a sucessful poke from Lisa's injector.

Whatever speculation he could have confirmed was suddenly cut off as Luna regained her faculties, and promptly started screaming again:

"I-I-iiiiit's TOO MUCH!" Her pupils were already expanded- but if they could have covered the whites of her eyes they surely would have. "M-MY BRAIN'S GONNA FUCKING POP!"

She sounded hysterical; even her silly accent was gone.

The Midwife nodded to herself from between Luna's legs. "Look's like you're nearly done dilating dear."

Sam gave an uneasily smile, "you hear that love? Just hold on for a bit long-"

"I'M POPPING! I'M POPPING!" The mother-to-be's eyes rolled, "IF I'M STUPID AFTER THIS- _ghWEEEEEEEEE!_ "

Internally, the pressure from the baby that would be soon named Lyra suddenly increased; and Luna's Loud's cervix split to allow the head to begin its passage. This was a not at all uncommon for first time mothers, if often extraordinarily painful.

But most mothers had not had access to Lisa Loud's wondrously effective medicine.

Instantly, Luna's brain was flooded with even more endorphins- enough to make an addict jealous. Every part of the organ that could be remotely considered to take part in processing pleasure lit up like a Christmas Tree. And while it certainly didn't _literally_ explode- Luna's mind could scarcely tell the difference as it nearly burned itself out from the pleasure.

Her eyes rolled back, her tongue lolled out and only vaguely human sounds emitted from her mouth as she jerked and jiggled with further contractions that only prolonged the woman's pleasure- that somehow only grew as her child started her long awaited journey. There were no further statements from the normally clever musician, but rather squeals and undignified jabbering as there was no capacity in her mind for anything but the sensations from her birth canal she pushed and squeezed her child through.

* * *

"Subject appears to have reached 123 decibels at peak clima-"

Lisa found her notepad snatched from her hands by an irate Lori Loud.

"Leese- for the last time!" The eldest glared down. "You are _not_ making this into one of your 'things' again!"

The family as a whole was clustered outside the hospital room, Lisa's own connections easily bypassing any concerns about crowding. Of course, most of them didn't really want to be in the actual room, considering the nature of modern birthing (the 'maternal revolution' as it was being dubbed now sweeping the globe thanks to Lisa's 'Happy Birthday' juice) so they just stayed out for now and didn't look at each other when the moaning peaked.

Lisa had to be 'convinced' not to stay in though.

"I would have to point out that by its very nature this is already one of 'my things'," Lisa air quoted. "So inhibiting my research only-"

"Gives your sister a shred of privacy?" Rita Loud pointedly reminded her second youngest.

"Ensures that vital data is lost," Lisa grasped the swaddled infant in her lap, and stroked the back of Lulu's neck. Instantly her eyes snapped open in their yellow, cat-slit like form and her tongue darted forward, striking out like a frog's to stick to the paper notepad. The spiral bound little book turned incorporeal in between Lori fingers, but was still stuck to Lulu's tongue as she drew it back to her mouth, where it solidified and she held it between her gums.

"Wha-" Lori looked at her hand- then back to the baby. "That's-"

"Superior design? Why yes," Lisa smirked and went to retrieve her notebook . "Thank you S-12-"

Her fingers went through as easily as Lori's had.

Lisa's smirk shrank a bit, "I said _thank you_ S-12."

Again- the book was rendered incorporeal just as she went to retrieve her property.

Lynn snickered from beside the scientist. Rita 'sighed', allowing herself a moment of catharsis; "Oh dear, it looks like your daughter doesn't understand that there's some things she's _not_ supposed to take and keep. I can't imagine where she gets it from."

"Your petty commentary is noted maternal unit," Lisa sourly replied, turning Lulu so that the swaddled bundle was facing her. There the little advanced abomination struggled for a moment to pull an arm out, then poked her pudgy little hand towards Lisa's chest. "S-12 now? _Really_?"

"Dude- I'm pretty sure she can't understand you." Lynn raised an eyebrow, her own pair of offspring currently happily oblivious to the world and its problems in their pram. "She's not even one-"

"That may be a factor in _your_ offspring, but S-12 is decisively more capable," Lisa replied with her characteristic smugness, and found herself being tapped more urgently on her arm as she got up. "Yes S-12, we can go to the bathroom-"

Lulu's little arm started practically flapping in insistence.

Lisa sighed and sat down. "Dang it S-12."

With a slightly red face the new mother cradled Lulu with one arm and started unbuttoning her now regular bottle green blouse. Before unceremoniously pulling aside her bra to allow Lulu to find and suckle directly from her engorged nipple.

"Dang Dude," Lynn whistled. "Those knockers got _bigger_?"

"I would appreciate it if you would keep the commentary to minimum- urrgh," Lisa winced as the little abomination happily drank her fill. The notepad turned incorporeal one last time and fell into Lisa's free hand.

"Ahh, she's a clever little spright isn't she?" Lynn Sr mused. "You know I think I remember you pulling something similar at her age…"

* * *

"Ahhh," Luna moaned, blinking her eyes. "NhhhgmmmmsssSAM?"

"Hey- I think she's back on English!" Luna could see a tired Lincoln nudging her wife.

"I dunno, she still seems pretty out of it," Sam waved a hand in front of Luna's face. "Hey Babe- you still in lala land?"

Luna stared up, was she still in lala land? "I-I don't knoooow?"

"… Well it's better than half of our other first time mothers nowadays," The Midwife sighed. "Ms Loud- do feel like you can hold your children?"

"My kids?" Luna blinked again. "I have kids? Oh _yeah_ I came here to have my kids. Hooooly _shiiit_ I have _kids_ now…."

"Yes you do." The Midwife spoke in a long suffering tone. "Do you want to see them or-"

"Sure, bring em over," Luna patted the side of her bed. "Gotta thank em anyway for a _good time_."

Lincoln winced, and Sam hid her face in embarrassment.

As an experienced hospital worker The Midwife was long above being effected by such weak sauce nonsense. So she simply called in another nurse and together they rolled a trolley bearing the freshly cleaned and swaddled twins to Luna's beside.

"Do you want to call the others in or-"

"Shhhh," Luna pressed a finger to Lincoln's lips to emphasise her intent.

Lincoln waited a moment, but Luna didn't continue. Rather his elder sister just slowly blinked.

The Midwife was pointedly staring at him, so he tried speaking again. "Do you want us-"

"Shhh!" She shushed him again with utter seriousness.

Sam looked at her wife in bemusement; "Babe, are you gonna explain or-"

"Shhh!" Luna used her other finger to silence her wife. "You'll wake the _babies_ …."

Lincoln looked over. Said babies were clearly awake- if not entirely happy about it. Rather they seemed to be in the usual state of disbelief an infant experiences upon reaching the outside world.

The Midwife was clearly sick of her nonsense however; "If you're that concerned we can take them for-"

"Nah nah," Luna suddenly released her wife and brother to scoop up the closest one, holding it out in front of her for examination. "I'm gonna take a look, just a look…"

The baby looked much like the other, distinguished only by the pink swaddling to indicate the female gender compared to her brother (which at least made telling the twins apart easier than their cousins/siblings who still looked much the same at their age, fraternal differences or not). Honestly, she was sort of like a little, misshapen human with a tuft of Luna's own shade of Brunette adorning the top, but not much else. It was like someone had just grabbed a bit of hair, glued it on top of her crown and called it a day before forgetting to do the rest of her head. Her pudgy little face was still red from being squished down a fleshy tube, and her big brown eyes stared seemingly as unimpressed with her mother as said mother was with her.

"She looks a like a meaty potato." Luna determined. "A big old meat potato."

Sam facepalmed.

"Yep," Luna giggled. "I grew a meat potato in my vag."

"They'll usually grow out of it," The Midwife motioned for Luna to take the other, and the new mother fumbled the girl to her left arm as she took the boy; whose hair seemed just a shade lighter. "We'll come back later- when Ms Loud has recovered."

"Yeah, that's probably for the best," Sam nodded, still red as a fire truck from embarrassment when The Midwife discreetly left, leaving her colleague behind to monitor the situation. When she looked back Luna was humming to herself, "you havin' fun there babe?"

"Babe?" Luna looked at the infants. "Are you talking to me or the babies?"

"You, Lunes, I'm talking to you," Sam crept closer, and spoke in a lower voice. "So… how do you feel?"

"Me?" Luna paused for a moment, then turned her head to face Sam with a slowly growing smile. "I feel _great_."

"That's good babe," Sam soothed. "I was worried since-"

"You gotta try this," Luna was suddenly dead serious. "I mean it- I know that thing in Wisconsin _felt_ like-"

"Not in front of other people!" Sam hissed, prompting a raised eyebrow from the white haired man. "Maybe we should let you rest-"

"No!" Luna insisted. "Y-you _have_ to get in on this- it's like nothing else and- h-hey Lincoln?"

"Ummm, yes?" Lincoln tried to smile at his thoroughly doped up sister, but whatever came out probably wouldn't have convinced anyone that wasn't blitzed.

"Y-you wanna give Sammie some jizz?"

'Thankfully' Luna very much was.

"In a cup I mean," the brunette woman made the best jerking motion she could with a baby in arm. "Like you do anyway since you don't have Ronnie anymore- but so Lisa can put it in the goggles for Sam."

Sam's blush instantly intensified, and her mouth dropped open. Lincoln instantly looked away from the blonde woman and wished the floor would eat him.

"Luna!" The blonde rocker groaned. "I- you're still high."

"Yeeep," Luna nodded. "It's fuckin'- friggin' great? I mean the kids probably don't care yet so-"

"How long does this last?" Lincoln shamefacedly asked the nurse, who seemed to be having the time of her life (professionally of course).

"It depends on the woman, she could be like this for the next five minutes- or the effects could need days to wear off entirely."

Lincoln looked back at the babbling loon wearing his sister's face.

"I mean, Mazzy'd rip Sully's dick off if he knocked someone else up so..."

"Lunes I-," Sam threw up her hands up. "I'm gonna let the guys know everything's fine, so just get some sleep okay-"

"I'd guess days from how she's acting." The nurse confirmed with a nod. "Maybe don't let her make any decisions for a week to be safe."


	6. Keeping a handle on things

**Keeping a handle on things.**

"Dammit Linc let go!" Luna was attempting to extract her child from Lincoln's steel grip, the man in question having fallen into a fitful sleep at the breakfast table where his siblings and offspring were gathered for Breakfast. He held Lyra with one cradled hand to him, dozing after her bottle feeding, while an assortment of other crotch spawn lay in various harnesses attached to his body.

"There's no point," Lisa pushed her glasses up. "His body has been trained to keep a hold of any and all semi-mobile infants even in a semi-comatose state."

"Then wake him up, I wanna hold my baby!" Luna groused. "God, he whines about not getting a break but then acts like this-"

"I think it's cute!" Lily cheered, feeding one of her own triplets, the rest safely in chairs next to her. "He's bonding!"

"Yeah well he'd _better_ get attached," a now thin again Luan muttered, all _five_ children having come out safely. "I think we're going to need Lisa's trackers just not to loose any!"

"I chipped them all shortly after birth," Lisa reassured her. Once upon a time this might have induced distress over the scientist's lack of respect for bodily autonomy. But after her far greater nonsense and many near escapes of assorted Loud spawn there was only a mix of grateful and disgruntled murmurs.

Luna rolled her eyes, "Yeah well, Sam and I are having a day- she wants to meet our daughter properly-"

"I take it Ms Sharp has 'come around' to our 'arrangement' then?" Lisa queried, her own spawn wiggling an 'appendage' over an engrossed sibling.

Luna narrowed her eyes, "Sam wants to be a Mom with me, but she sure as shit doesn't like how it happened so YOU'D best your trap shut!"

Lisa returned to feeding an offspring with a shrug, "a shame, I had hoped that she would have considered providing a 'half breed' of sorts-"

Lincoln's eyes suddenly snapped open with shrunken pupils, and the girls collectively winced.

"Dang it Lisa," Lori sighed.

"N-no more," he moaned. "No more babies... so many babies... I c-can't do it again!"

"Shh," Luna darted forward, "it's okay, Lisa was being silly again; she's not going to use you to knock anyone else up anymore." She glared at the scientist, who simply rolled her eyes.

"A-are you sure-" the man's sleep deprived eyes were bloodshot. "I thought I saw even more, they were called Lina a-and Marla and-"

"It's was a nightmare Linky," Leni stroked her brother's hair.

"O-okay..."

"Could you let Luna have Little Lyra now?" Leni gently pressured.

"Oh, right." Lincoln turned his eyes to Luna and held out the sleepy near toddler. "Make sure she-"

"Eats in half an hour, sleeps loads and gets changed- yeah I helped change your diapers you know, Mr Mom," Luna groused, plucking Lyra from his hands and rocking her back to proper sleep.

"Classical music relaxes her..." he gently fell back into his daze.

"Sure bruv, just get a nap." Luna, flashed a grateful smile to Leni, then turned her annoyed gaze back to Lisa. "Okay, just to make things clear; Linc's traumatised enough without you knocking up my wife. If you do this again, we're gonna make you have the delivery again, and this time skipping the 'happy juice', ya got that?"

Lisa rolled her eyes. "I believe it would be prudent to point out that you all used the googles _after_ you were aware of the previous pregnancies, and therefore took the risks fully knowing them."

"Whatever dude," Luna groused. "Just don't make any more kids, natural or 'otherwise' " she nodded to Lulu.

"Hmm," the scientist returned to feeding another offspring. As Luna walked off in a huff, the rest of the table tried to avoid thinking about how they got there.

Meanwhile, deep in the lab, Lisa's computer updated itself as another woman made use of her invention somewhere in the world, and the new being was listed as 'normal 28' on the spreadsheet containing the children's names. A moment later the process repeated, this time as 'special 12', indicating a modified sperm had achieved conception.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Nuuo for Beta reading this chapter


	7. Keeping the Kids in Line

**(Failing at) Keeping The kids in line.**

"HOLY SHIT!" Lynn gasped, shaken as a laser half roasted the wall paper behind her.

"Buh!" Replied the glowing eyed experimental human-CLASSIFED admixture infant, street name; Lulu Loud.

"Lynn!" Leni protested. "Language! You'll teach them the bad words!"

"Oh right!" Lynn snapped. "I don't know how I forgot, I guess I was just DISTRACTED BY THE FUCKING EYE LAZERS TRYING TO MELT MY HEAD!"

"Judging from scorch mark depth, Lulu is using non-lethal force," Lisa pushed up her glasses, before ducking behind the couch to continue. "Nothing I couldn't fix with a dermal regeneration solution, please don't be so dramatic."

The siblings three were currently in the living room of the Loud House, having come an hour earlier to assist their brother in babysitting duty. Rita and Lynn Loud Sr needed to go out for the many groceries required for the assorted progeny they housed on behalf of their children, and while their sole son was capable enough on most days a near two dozen squalling infants required more than two hands were capable of.

Thus Lisa, Lynn and Leni had been called in. While normally assorted the progeny would split their time in between the Loud House and their many mother's residences as per availability (Luna's band was often on tour, so Lyra would spend more time there than average for example), so that there would usually only be a comparatively merciful 'mere' ten or less spawn to track; this week the assorted Loud sisters almost all had professional or familial obligations that lead them to drop their children off at their old house at once.

This was a disaster, the Grandparents had lasted only a day before demanding assistance from their daughters. Unfortunately only Lisa, Lynn and Leni were in a position to help, so down they went. Sadly the supplies were apparently in such short supply that the Grandparents had to leave before the three arrived, and in the time that Lincoln was alone…

They had come to see a disaster in the making, the moment they stepped into the front door they spotted Lincoln in his now usual getup. It was mostly a sort of canvas smock, or poncho depending on how low it was dragged that day, pock marked and stained with bodily fluids there were assorted small but strong harnesses attached to every inch of space on the front. On his back was a backpack filled with assorted diapers, minor supplies, semi-warm formula milk in thermal jugs and probably more than one of Lynn's old weights to counter the human weight from the front.

For those harnesses were filled with at least a dozen wiggling toddlers and slightly younger infants, barely spaced apart enough to avoid them smacking each other. Now however more than one of those harnesses were empty, but their previous occupants weren't far. Lulu was presently curled around Lincoln's left hand, not being held but firmly squeezing herself on the outside to keep a grip. On his left shoulder sat Lucy's white haired spawn, seeming to giggle at the madness and on his right was little Lacy happily babbling nonsense. Upon his head was Lyra, Luna's child maintaining her precarious position by twisting her tiny fingers into the man's signature white hair and pointing at the three adults like a lookout with her free hand.

"BUH!" She declared.

"BA- MA-MA!" Lacy noticed her mother and gave a clumsy wave, before grabbing at Lincoln's neck to steady herself.

"DU DA KA KA!" Lupa laughed and tugged at Lincoln's earlobe. Like an automaton the blank faced man turned to match empty eyes with Lynn's, and upon a growl from Lulu raised his infant bearing arm to level the mutant at Lynn's face.

"Aw beans," the athlete groaned, then she jerked just in time to avoid another beam. She started half sprinting, half parkouring around the living room as the shots continued, barely dodging burns of heavens only knows what degree by inches.

"LUKA NO BOOBOO MAMA!" Lacy protested, and started climbing over to her sister's shoulder.

"GOOD GIRL LACY!" A still un-winded (because she was Lynn Loud Jr) Jock cheered, "girls grab him now!"

Lisa and Leni quickly darted forward, Leni grabbing both of Lincoln's arms to stop him from aiming his 'gun'. "Linky stop!"

Lisa quckly grabbed her progeny, and pulled her away from her father's arm, thus disarming him. The mutant squirmed for a moment, then turned to look at her mother and 'smiled' to reveal her many jawed 'happy face'.

"Yes S-12, I'm pleased to see you are reasonably healthy as well." Lisa dryly remarked.

"Oh is she alright? I'm _so_ happy to hear that- SHE TRIED TO LASER ME IN THE FACE LEESE!" Lynn griped as she stalked over. "And don't think you're getting out of this either Stincoln! _Seriously_ what the fuck!?"

"Her previous records indicate that she can melt steel beams in seconds," Lisa countered, the squirming infant letting out inhumanly high pitched giggles as her mother flipped her to cradle Lulu to her chest. "It is far more likely that she was 'playing.' "

"Playing? Seriously Leese," Lynn pinched her nose. "And how come Mr Mom here thought _that shooting me in the head_ was a good idea, hunh Link!?" She turned glared at Lincoln, who did not respond.

"Nargh nah!" Lupa and Lacy were pulling at each other, so Leni quickly grabbed both from the man's shoulder and started rocking them before a tantrum erupted. Lyra remained on top of his head, but pouted at the adults. Lincoln…

Lincoln was dead eyed, with dark patches under his blue bloodshot orbs that could have been mistaken for mascara. He did not blink, he barely breathed, but when Little Lyra tapped his head in frustration his upper left eyelid slipped down for a moment, then slowly pulled itself back up again.

"… Damn Lincoln, did you catch something?" Lynn relented.

Lisa marched forwards and flashed a pen light into one of his eyes with her free hand, then checked some of his other responses. "His reactions are more in line with extreme sleep deprivation than an illness."

"Dude seems like he needs more than a nap Leese," Lynn shook her head.

"Can you hear us Linky?" Leni asked to no response.

"This is not entirely an unexpected result, though the full extent certainly is," Lisa began pacing. "Our brother has been the primary caretaker of the subjects-"

"Our _kids_ Lisa." Lynn growled, and then gently plucked Lacy from Leni's arm to show her the spawn in demonstration. Lacy smiled and waved at her aunt. "They're our kids, not test subjects!"

"I see no reason why they cannot achieve both roles," Lisa countered.

"Damnit Leese-"

The scientist cut her off. "Regardless; our brother has been acting as the primarily caretaker of the many members of our next generation, street name; The Sin Kids."

"I fucking hate that name," Lynn groused.

"It's not nice…" Leni sighed, little Lupa seemed to smirk.

Lisa ignored them, "during these past months he has barely left this household, street name; The Loud House, also recently dubbed by Luan as 'Baby Jail' . While Lincoln _has_ had assistance from other members of the family, including the invaluable expertise of myself, he has also remained the sole continuous caretaker of over a dozen infants at any one time. Across this period I have observed both the standard sleep deprivation suffered by new parents in this period, as well as a remarkable improvement in domestic skills that has extended to an impressive somnambulistic ability to perform said tasks without a pause in his sleep cycle."

Lynn blinked.

Lisa sighed: "he does chores in his sleep, it is how he is able to change, feed and care in general for so many infants at once. But it may have also contributed to this situation;

If I were to hypothesise the cause and sequence of these events, I would assume that the recent rapid increase in the amount of infants in the house at the same time has cut down on the few hours of genuine rest that he previously still had. This would make him highly suggestible, or even 'trainable' if one were inclined to alter his patterns while he was in a semi-conscious state, which he would have been due to the sheer strain of so many domestic tasks.

Coupling that with the tendency towards rapid development within our family unit, and the observed actions of our progeny, specifically Subjects-"

"Use. Their. Names." Lynn glared.

Lisa rolled her eyes, "specifically Lupa and Lacy, I would assume that they have learnt how to manipulate our brother's semi-comatose state to perform minor tasks on their behalf. Upon observing our own Parental Units departure they sought to take advantage of their absence for some purpose of their own, and were startled when we unexpectedly interrupted them with our arrival."

Leni tilted her head in confusion.

"They were piloting him like one of Lincoln's own fictional giant robots while he sleepwalks." Lisa simplified. "They were surprised when we caught them."

"Now see that would have been way easier to understand if you just said that from the start," Lynn squeezed Lacy a bit closer to her, earning another happy coo. "But why though?"

"If I were to guess, that." Lisa pointed to the kitchen, where a number of cupboards lay empty. While most of them would have been bare simply because of the rapid use of supplies, there was one that still should have had at least one object inside. Said object was a large glass cookie jar that had been the objective of many escapades of the Loud Siblings in their younger years, and now sat on it's side, stuffed closed not with the thick cork cap but by a wiggling toddler. Their back half still trying to find purchase on the smooth floor to dig in further, but confounded by the lack of traction offered by their woollen onesie-clad feet.

Lynn facepalmed with her free hand, dropped a slightly clingy Lacy back into Leni's arms and marched over to the infant-in-a-jar. Freshly out of today's fucks supply she grabbed the jar with one hand and pulled a blonde spawn free by her legs with the other.

Suspended in mid air was a slightly embarrassed Loan Loud, bearing a half-eaten mint-chocolate chip cookie in one hand. The infant shyly offered Lynn her treat.

"Yeah, it's gonna take more than that to bribe me," Lynn marched over to her siblings and dropped Lori's spawn on the couch, a quick look in the jar revealed that the other treats looked unmolested. Shrugging she promptly grabbed one and stuffed it into Lincoln's slightly open mouth.

"Sorry for leaving you like this Lincoln."

The white haired man didn't reply, but the cookie moved slightly as his mouth moved on autopilot to start chewing. She thought his eyes brightened slightly though.

"So Linky's really needs some help then?" Leni asked, her voice sad as she took in his state. Even now there were a bunch of infants strapped to him, most with some crumbs on them and the clear beginnings of sugar highs in their eyes. "We should have been here with him…"

"We all have professional commitments that assist the household," Lisa pushed her glasses up to avoid Lulu's grasping 'finger'. "As well as personal matters outside of it, perhaps we should have been better prepared but this was hardly malicious on our part."

"Shouldn't you have prepared for this?" Lynn folded her arms, dropping down next to Loan. "You did plan this."

"I did not anticipate just how effective my invention would be," Lisa shrugged. "The burden of an overachiever, but my initial assumption would be that the children would come in batches, years apart most likely-"

Lynn snorted, "how the fuck did you expect-"

"The others have used the machine multiple times despite knowing of the danger, I anticipated as such." Lisa primly countered. "In my scenario however I expected to mete out the pregnancies over a decade, however I failed to consider the probability of each conception occurring in the same approximate period of time."

"So they all came at once, and you weren't ready?" Leni asked, just to make sure she followed.

"That is the core of the matter," Lisa confirmed. "Though I must point out that largely the 'Lincoln solution' has largely worked as expected, it was only because of the unfortunate coincidence of so many simultaneous professional events that forced the extreme situation of so many infants requiring care at once."

"Dang it," Lynn sighed, and then quickly grabbed Loan as she tried to sneak away. "I guess we've been kinda letting Linc carry this on his own anyway."

Lincoln did not reply. His cookie was slowly disappearing though.

"Indeed, I had anticipated that even in a worst case scenario that Ms Sharp as well as other familial romantic partners and friends would be on hand to relieve the pressure. However that was not the case for this week." Lisa pulled a phone from her coat, "given our situation, it is unwise to call in true outsiders. But I may have some personal contacts that I could make use of while our brother is resting."

"I think some friends owe me a few favours too," Lynn reached for her own phone.

"Are we going to give Linky a nap then?" Leni asked, sitting down next to Loan, letting Lupa and Lacy have a slightly looser grip. "He really looks like he needs one."

"Indeed," Lisa confirmed. "Does anyone have the number of Ms Santiago?"

"I think Ronnie's not in this anymore," Lynn shook her head. "She got really… _weird_ the last time she was here."

Lisa arched eyebrow.

Lynn shuddered, "look, she went from being really pissed off at Linc for all of this, then she sorta smouldered a bit; then finally she came along and started asking him if he was gonna knock up anyone else. But not like to remind him of a fuckup, but in a creepy way, like with big eyes and everything…"

Lisa paused her dialling for a moment. "I have my suspicions of her intentions, but I believe that she would be an acceptable substitute should we have need of more assistants."

"I think Ronnie's jealous of all the babies," Leni thought aloud. "But we have so many, Linky can't really have any more, he's so tired already!"

"An accurate assessment," Lisa prepared to dial. "But I'm certain that she would respect his boundaries."

"You mean like you didn't?" Lynn snarked.

"I mean like no one in this family does," Lisa glared down. "Or have you forgotten your own many egregious exceptions to his desires?"

"Whaddya mean Einstein?" Lynn growled. "I didn't steal his jizz to make a million kids!"

"No, you merely helped him into a Squirrel Suit." Lisa snapped, then found herself on the ground as a classic Dust Cloud Brawl began. Leni gasped then joined in on instinct, still not sure whose side she was on but old instincts demanding that she get involved.

To their side Lincoln finally finished his cookie, and bit his tongue. The pain startled him a bit, and her blinked once to see the cloud of chaos, blinked again to see Loan, Lacy, Lupa and a freshly dropped but fine Lulu reacting to the madness in various states from fear to a babyish cheering. He mechanically felt around for the last missing Loud, found her on his head and plucked her from it without care for the pulled strands between her fingers or her whinging protests, then gathered up the assorted tots, strapped them back into the harness and made his way to the kitchen for feeding time.

His parents could deal with their kids, he had enough trouble dealing with his own.

Trouble that would soon multiply exponentially.

* * *

Two Weeks earlier:

"Honey are you sure you and Lincoln can manage on your own?" Rita asked her daughter with a doubtful tone, "It's lovely that you're arranging a night off for us but Lincoln still hasn't said a word all evening."

"I assure you maternal parental unit, he will be fine." Lisa reassured her, the only sign of deceit a slight twitch in the corner of her lips. "The others will arrive shortly after you leave."

"Well if you say so," Rita's voice betrayed her doubt. "But be sure to call us if-"

"Honeyshesaidit'sfine," Lynn Sr grabbed his wife and half dragged her out the door. "Let'sgobeforeshechangeshermind!"

"Lynn let me-" The door slammed before she could finish and moments later the familiar sound of Vanzillla rapidly escaping came from the garage.

Lisa waited a minute, the dead eyed man next to her still wordless. Unusually for him there were no children nearby, though he had one of the stuffed Rabbit toys that littered the house rocking in his arms. Lisa had given it to him to stop him from instinctively seeking out of the many infants currently in her sleep inducing pods.

"BZZT!" There was a crackling sound as the ancient doorbell zapped a victim, the yelp identified said victim as Ronnie Anne Santiago.

Lisa rolled her eyes and moved to let her in.

"Dang it, still falling for that after all these years," Ronnie muttered as she clenched her twitching fingers. "Thanks Lisa, is Linc ready for tonight?"

"Certainly, just try to keep it down this time."

"So where is he?" Sid Chang popped up from behind Ronnie, "I can't wait to see if he lives up to the- aww that's cute! He has a bunny!"

"I take it Ms Chang will be joining us this evening?" Lisa pushed the door closed behind the women.

Ronnie rolled her eyes; "yeah, I mean we're not technically together anymore so it's 'fine' and she gets annoying if-"

"How come he looks dead inside Ronnie?" Sid looked up into Lincoln's face.

"He's a parent, that's normal," Ronnie sighed. "Look, let's just get up to his room and-"

"Hey what's that word he likes? Lamey, Loser-O?" Sid wondered aloud.

"Sid NO!" Ronnie's went to grab the other woman.

"Oh right, Lame-O!" Sid grinned, then let the smile drop a bit as she suddenly found herself on the Loud couch with her newly bare legs in the air. Lincoln's eyes were as empty as before, but his tongue extended to her shy privates without mercy, bending to make a slight but distinct upwards hook at the wet tip.

"Hey you're pretty fast there," Sid chuckled nervously, "Ronnie is this normal- _ohhh- EEEP! Oh gravy!_ OH GRAVY!"

"I see he's learned a few tricks since last time," Ronnie dryly observed, letting her hand fall and raising her voice over Sid's rapidly increasing 'happy sounds'.

"Indeed, his skill set seems to be have rapidly expanded upon exposure to multiple-"

"I don't wanna know who else Lisa," Ronnie shook her head. "I'm just glad that he and I got something out of this mess."

"Indeed." Lisa's lip twitched again.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Nuuo for suggesting 'The Word' :P


	8. Discoveries and disciplinary action

**Discoveries and disciplinary action**

"WHERE THE FUCK IS SHE!?"

Rita Loud jerked in surprise as her front door slammed open, her tired husband beside her not even stirring in response from his unplanned nap in his breakfast.

The last she remembered she and Lynn had come home to an annoyingly familiar dust cloud and several suspicious scorch marks on the walls. Rita had broken them up with her Mom Voice while Lynn found their son feeding their many Grandchildren on his now standard autopilot.

One thorough tongue lashing later and the six adults had shared a breakfast, and the mollified girls promised to put away the groceries and help Lincoln to bed before taking a collective shift on caring for the innumerable infants. Of course Lynn and Rita themselves were nearly as tired as Lincoln, so at some point she'd fallen asleep, though not right into her bacon as her husband had.

Through bleary eyes she confirmed that it was now nearly twelve-noon, and the table was clear of anyone but Rita and Lynn. The living room meanwhile was solely populated by an unusually irate Luna Loud.

"I KNOW SHE- oh hi Mom, do you know where Lisa is?" Luna cut her volume at the sight of her bag-eyed mother.

"Are you going to kill her?"

"… I'm not gonna lie; I came here with murder on my mind." Luna sighed.

Rita considered this for a moment. Lisa was a wonder for humankind, had given them the principals required for time travel and single handily created new fields of study. And that was _before_ she made childbirth pleasurable, earning her the love and praise of at least half of the population till the end of time.

On the other hand she had condemned their son to Baby Jail, and Rita and Lynn Sr with him in the process.

"I mean- I could probably tone it down, but she really gets on my nerves since she never apologises-"

"I think she's upstairs with the kids, if you're going to have one of your brawls do it outside and keep it down." Rita decided that her daughters were old enough to sort this nonsense out on their own.

Luna grinned, slightly bloodthirstily. "Thanks mom!"

The rocker quickly sped off up the stairs, leaving her mother to roll her eyes and pass out again.

Luna Loud had come for blood. Maybe not _life_ blood but her sister had earned a beating, forget the orgasmo-juice that made her an international sensation and earned her another Nobel Prize; she'd gone and done the one thing Luna had warned her specifically not to do.

"Leese!" She growled, pushing open the first door she saw- no, no Lisa in here; plenty of squirming babies though. And a Leni currently reading to the many children surrounding her. Her sister was sitting in a chair, a half dozen infants currently dispersed between three of the many wooden cots that now dotted the house. Her own Liena was sitting on her lap, apparently trying to help.

"And that's how the Dog in the- oh hi Luna!" Leni noticed her and brightened up. "Did you come to help?"

"Nah bruv, just coming in to settle some things." Luna grinned with clenched teeth. "Do you know where Lisa is?"

"Oh, Lisa's with Linky at the moment!" Leni chirped. "He has a hard time not sleeping walking so Lisa's using a machine to help him!"

"Oh," Luna's smile wavered. "Yeah, that makes sense, he's in his old room right?"

"Yep, I think Lynn is helping the other babies with their naps in our old room though. Don't forgot to say hi to Lyra and Lemy!" Leni smiled, and Luna heard her continue her story as she closed the door.

_Right._

As much as she wanted to strap Lisa into one of her own inventions, if she saw her now she'd get so mad she'd forget about seeing her own kids until after she left. So with quick feet she marched past Lincoln's door and opened Lori and Leni-

"STAY PUT YOU LITTLE SHITS!" Lynn raged, the pandemonium swelling and rising in a soundwave better suited to one of Luna's concerts than a nursery. All around her Loud spawn bounced and twitched in a sugared up mess, and Luna spotted her own slightly cranky twins tussling with each other over a stuffed rabbit.

Not the aged and threadbare Bun-Bun of course, that was still somewhere 'lost in storage' (she was pretty sure Lincoln just didn't want him torn to pieces). Judging from how fiercely they were pulling at said rabbit they probably were more trouble than they were worth at the moment, she could probably come back in a few hours.

Of you know, however long it took for Lynn to wrestle them all to sleep.

What? She wasn't a bad mother, it just wasn't her turn!

"LUNA THANK GOD!" Lynn had noticed her, and while the room didn't quieten, she noticed her twins stop fighting for a moment. "JUST HELP ME GET THE BRATS INTO BED AND I'LL TAKE YOUR NEXT TURN!"

Lemy promptly used the distraction to pull the rabbit out of Lyra's chubby hands, and Lyra grabbed Lemy's head in response, going back to their little wrestling match without care.

Always good to know where you are on your kids priority list.

"SORRY LYNN!" She called. "I'M JUST HERE TO STRANGLE LISA!"

Lynn looked upon in despair, then a thought crossed her mind. "… SHE DIDN'T DID SHE?"

Luna just nodded.

"DANG IT, JUST MAKE SURE SHE GETS IT THIS TIME-mrffgh!" A bat winged Lulu suddenly attached herself to Lynn's face. Luna took that as her cue to leave and shut the door.

She switched on the old lock just in case, she was sure they all knew the code now anyway.

But enough about Lynn and the kids, time to get her revenge.

She marched over in her boots and threw Lincoln's door open like it was old times. Within she saw Lisa calmly typing notes into a tablet while sitting in a chair next to Lincoln's bed. Lincoln himself was a mess, probably unhealthily underweight and bearing an unevenly shaved stubble that spoke of numerous attempts and interruptions.

He also had the fucking goggles on, complete with a little metal arm going under the covers.

"Leese…" she almost purred. "I knew you were trouble, but you've gone way too far this time."

Lisa calmly put her tablet on sleep and regarded her sister with impassive eyes. "Given your culturally limited worldview that could refer to any number of recent events, could you be more specific?"

Luna marched over, picked up the nonplussed scientist with one hand and showed her a positive pregnancy test in the other.

"Congratulations, I might assume that Sully will be the parental unit this time, or have you taken up Ms Santiago's habit of-"

"It's. Not. Mine." Luna growled. "It's- wait what was that about Ronnie?"

"Ms Santiago has been visiting for copulatory purposes," Lisa informed. "However our brother has been largely in a semi-conscious state these past few months, so his somnambulatary has increased to include a more 'intimate' skill set."

Luna proceeded this for a moment, "… Ronnie's been fucking him in his sleep? Or Lincoln's been sleep-fucking her?"

"An uncouth, but not inaccurate assessment," Lisa agreed.

"And you're asking me if I've been doing the same thing?" Luna gagged. "That's gross Leese- and why would you ask me if-"

"You have come to show me proof of your pregnancy," Lisa dryly replied. "I am unaware of any other 'partners' that you have made use of besides your bandmate and our brother that could have resulted in a pregnancy. Lincoln himself is steadfast against further conception using his reproductive material, to the point of having to be dissuaded against further vasectomies after the first three failed. Lastly you have not made use of the goggles in months so I could only assume you 'helped yourself' as it were. The only loose end is why you might see the need to accost me in this manner."

Luna glared down at her. "Because Brain Box, I said it's not mine."

Lisa seemingly thought this over. "So you did, forgive me; I have been quite distracted by our brother's unusual brain patterns-"

"It's. Sam's." Luna growled, and finally dropped her. "We haven't had a 'thing' that could've gotten either or us pregnant. Thing is though, she mentioned that she had 'one too many' the last time she was over here, and she woke up with you being shifty nearby. Just over three weeks ago too.

 _Now_ I come in here and the first thing I see is you using those fuckin' glasses on Linc again to get more jizz."

She leaned down to make sure Lisa couldn't escape her furious gaze. "So, you wanna spill or are we gonna have to get that teleport machine ourselves?"

Lisa calmly reached over and switched off her tablet. "I can assure you that I have not used my invention to induce Ms Sharp's pregnancy, on the occasion you speak of I happened to be documenting our brother's expanding somnambulatory skill set."

"And how the _fuck_ am I suppose to believe that?" Luna leaned back and let out a bitter laugh, then considered Lisa's expression.

She wasn't doing her stupid 'lie smile'.

"Wait, you really had nothing to do with this?" Luna's confusion grew. She knew Sam wouldn't cheat on her, not only had they been together longer than most people stayed married (and way longer than most people stayed happily married) but they had conversations about 'allowances' on a regular basis. Most of them didn't actually amount to doing anything, but they both knew what was allowed and what wasn't.

But as she pondered this, Lisa's lip twitched. Instantly she brought her face closer.

"Leese."

"I think you have gotten what you wished dear sibling," Lisa's face resumed it's usual stoicism. "Perhaps you should investigate elsewhere."

"Nah, I think I'm on the right track." Luna kept her eyes on that point on Lisa's lips. "Do me a favour; say 'I had nothing to do with Sam's pregnancy'."

Lisa began visibly sweating and her lip twitched again. "I see no purpose in this line of questioning-"

"Well I do," Luna replied with a cold voice. " 'Cause I'm thinking; what would I do if I were a pervy scientist who can't lie for shit? Maybe I'd practice to get better at lying, maybe I'd be right careful about what I said so I didn't actually lie but still got the other person to buy me shit.

But maybe, just maybe; if that person were to actually try an' get me to say the truth right an' proper I'd still be fucked."

Lisa's lip twitched, worse this time.

"Say the line Leese. No bullshit."

Lisa tried to get up, but found herself held down by a hand to the shoulder. She opened her mouth to protest but saw utterly no mercy in her elder sister's eyes.

Reluctantly she spoke up.

"I have done nothing to induce Sam Sharp's pregnancy."

Her face could have been used to terrify the twenty four (current) total Loud children into submission, probably even Lulu.

"FOR FUCKS SAKE LISA!" Luna screamed hard enough for her experienced voice to crack. "SHE IS MY WIFE!"

She threw Lisa back into the chair and punched at the wall, there was a satisfying crunch and when she pulled back her fist it revealed a hole into the next room.

"WE TOLD YOU TO CUT THIS SHIT OUT- BUT NO YOU JUST HAD TO- WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU EVEN DO THIS TIME!?"

Lincoln, miraculously, remained sleeping through the entire thing.

The rising cries from both filled nurseries were another matter. Lisa sighed and re-adjusted her glasses.

"I did relatively little. It was simply an observation; as we have established Lincoln had been as you stated 'sleep-fucking' for months now. At the last house party you brought along your designated partner, Ms Sharp to join you. However you failed to noticed that even at that time Lincoln was already in 'autopilot' as Lynn has dubbed it.

It is during this state that Ms Sharp happened to become heavily intoxicated, right after you yourself passed out after your shot contest against one another."

Luna's mind vaguely recalled the details. She and Sam had a thing, sometimes they just wanted to get smashed and the house was as safe a place as any, so they did their surefire shitface technique and that night Luna was the one bowing out early.

"Leni volunteered to take your comatose form to your old room and let you 'sleep it off'. However our parental units failed to realise that Lincoln wasn't simply being quiet, but already in his semi-comatose state, so when they asked him to take Ms Sharp up to Lynn's old room he simply complied. I noticed that Ms Sharp was… amorous at the time despite her intoxicated state and followed to make my observations."

Luna growled. It still made sense, Sam got horny when drunk or high and still felt safe to be so. The house was a second home to her, and Lincoln was as safe you got as long as you didn't check his internet history.

"How come you didn't stop them, and why didn't Mom and Dad room her with me!" Luna snapped.

"I believe that they remembered the price of the replacement sheets from the last time you two 'roomed together' at this location while intoxicated." Lisa snarked, but quickly resumed her story upon Luna's expression returning to hostility. "Regardless, as you now likely expected I observed Ms Sharp drunkenly 'putting the moves' on our brother once in the room and once she… stumbled upon a certain phrase that Ms Santiago likes to use-"

"Your face is showing your bullshit."

"I may have mentioned it to Ms Sharp in passing." Lisa fumbled a bit. "Regardless, once the phrase was uttered our brother simply 'fell into old habits as it were' and copulated extensively."

Luna remained still.

Then she was in Lisa's face again and there was another hole in the wall next to her head.

"Just to be sure," she said in a voice entirely too calm for her. "You helped my drunk wife cheat on me with our mind fucked brother?"

Lisa reached for something, only to have her hand siezed by Luna's not-wall-embedded-hand and the object tossed out the round window by her sister. Resigning herself to words she replied; "Ms Sharp likely would not have committed her actions without influence from intoxication-"

"Yeah no, I'm not blaming her. I'm not blaming _him_ ," she thumbed over to his comatose form. "Holy shit you're just… milking him like a fuckin' cow; why?"

"Lincoln has some of the most stable and healthy genes in the human species," Lisa informed. "While he lacks the more extreme talents of the rest of our familial line I couldn't have found a more solid foundation for my experiments short of –"

"You know what, I don't care anymore." Luna leaned up and pulled her dusty fist from the wall, she looked down at Lisa with frustration. "What I _do_ care about is who else you did this to."

"Who else?" that damn twitch again. "I don't know what you-"

"You don't run experiments with a single 'subject', not if you want 'replicable results'." Luna snapped. "That's how you prove it right? Well I know you, _god knows_ I know you, and I know you want more test subjects anyway; so how many others did you pull this shit with?"

Lisa's lip twitched again.

"Only those who would have agreed eventually."

* * *

"Urggh," Stella moaned, making friends with her toilet. "How come I feel like I pulled three all-nighters with Lincoln's crappy coffee- wait. Lincoln? And my period…"

Miles away from Stella's apartment Sid Chang was her usual bubbly self.

Also vomiting all colours of the rainbow.

"I don't know how you can keep eating," Ronnie Anne blanched as her friend fit ever more ice cream into her newly vacated stomach. The two were in pyjamas on Sid's couch, a bucket next to Sid for her to use.

"It's like the perfect cheat Ronnie," the other girl grinned, but with bags under her eyes and pale lips. "I really want ice-cream, and I can have as much as I want because it doesn't go to my thighs, it goes to _my bucket_."

"Hmm," Ronnie hummed noncommittedly. "You know Nikki said something similar, but she had to stop when... _oh shit_."

Meanwhile in Royal woods, more than a dozen ladies of varying ages were dealing with their own problems. Some were lifelong friends of the Loud family, others were passing acquaintances who Lisa had spotted as being 'pent up' and willing to partake in 'casual relations', or were willing to 'try a new invention'.

And as Lisa's surprisingly high pitches cries rang out from the most thorough spanking she had ever gotten, Lincoln Loud slept well for perhaps the last time in decades.


	9. Orientation Day

**Orientation Day:**

"So to summarise; the main house is continuously used for assorted offspring directly or tangentially related to the Loud family. When in said house said offspring are cared for by Lincoln Loud himself as well as usually Rita and Lynn Loud Sr and a rotating roster of adult family members.

However the offspring usually split their time between the house and their parental abode as per the preference of the mother in question. For example; Lari and Loan Loud spend the majority of their time at the Santiago-Loud residence in Great Lakes City as Lori Loud was already a mother of multiple children and well equipped for managing an expanded family with the assistance of her husband Bobby Santiago-Loud.

In contrast; Lyra and Lemy Loud are more likely to remain at the house at all times due to the more 'adventurous' lifestyle of their mother and are treated like permanent residents.

All of the main Loud Sisters contribute to household funds, as all are well capable of it; but at a fair rate compared to their income. In the case of the non-incestuous offspring I have prepared a package from my own considerable resources that will cover any and all expenses that will likely occur as a result of providing for your new offspring, and will be happy to act as their doctor in-"

"Yeah we'll think twice about that Leese," Luna interrupted her by switching off the ancient projector. The scientist was conducting her presentation in the living room with a patchwork projector screen over the TV. Parked upon the couch before said presentation were a half-dozen women in varying stages of pregnancy, one of which the was the less than enthused Sam Sharp.

Luna walked around to face the women, "all right, so that's orientation more or less done. Any questions?"

Stella raised a hesitant hand.

"Extra toilets are next to the garage," Luna guessed. "Trust me ladies; I've been there."

Stella lowered her hand and flushed, but nodded in gratitude.

"I have one," Luna's wife asked with a dangerous smile. "You said you planned this?"

Lisa rolled her eyes, "I merely 'planned' the conceptions that involved the use of my goggles and only then for the women who fantasised or otherwise desired offspring of their own. Ergo why none of you have elected to terminate your pregnancies."

"Really?" Sam's smile twitched. "Because of I don't remember wanting to jump on Lincoln's pole."

"Your sudden pickiness in-"

"Think carefully about what you say next Leese," Luna warned. "Unless you _liked_ not being able to sit for a week."

Lisa's maintained her stoic expression, but her hands subconsciously went to shield her still slightly deformed buttocks. "Ahem; what I meant to say was that I didn't do anything that was fundamentally against your own desires, where you were aware of them or not. In your case Ms Sharp your 'biological clock' and proximity to Luna's offspring induced an underlying envy for your partner for having carried biological children-"

Sam's expression waved for a moment, and Luna recalled the oddly wistful expression the other rocker had borne when she'd played with Lyra or Lemy. But the Sharp woman regained her focus. "Yeah well, this was my and Luna's decision to make, and believe it or not I could've used another dick than my wife's brother!"

"True; but our goals coincided and when your distress passes I'm sure that you will realise that this is only an advantage." Lisa countered.

Sam looked Luna, Luna shook her head. _We can kick her ass_ _after_ she mouthed. Her hormonal wife narrowed her eyes and stalked off to the garage toilet to either vomit or just fume.

Probably both. She was pregnant after all.

Lisa continued, "despite your many differences you all have something in common; a desire to have children. Most of you are single or in homosexual relationships that make adoption more difficult than necessary. This method, while perhaps having less than the ideal courting methodology ascribed by our current societal standards offers fulfilment of that desire, as well as financial stability for said offspring and a wealth of scientific data for the community at large-"

Luna interrupted this time. "You're not allowed to experiment on them Leese. We _talked about this_."

"If by talking you mean assaulting my Gluteus Maximus until exhaustion; then I remember it quite well," Lisa snipped back. The women on the couch brightened a bit at the scientist's visible distress.

"Yeah well, if I hear that you're pulling any more shit I'm breaking out Big Blarney," Luna folded her arms. "Sam's been asking if maybe we can find out if you like it too, since you're not big on consent anyway."

Lisa blanched and hurried through her words. "W-well as you can see all financial, medical and legal matters have been accounted for. If you like you can stay for refreshments and observe our group care in action in the kitchen, I'm sure some of you would like to discuss matters with Lincoln regardless."

Stella blinked, "wait- Lincoln's here?"

"Lincoln is always here," Luna confirmed. "He's even mostly sentient today too- where's Leese?"

A quick look revealed that the scientist had vanished.

"Ahh fuck it, me an' Sam'll get her later anyway." Luna waved it off, "anyway; well go over some ground rules and after that you're welcome to stay for a bit, just follow me and try it keep it down for Daddy Daycare."

"Ground rules?" Paige questioned.

Luan nodded and started counting off rules; "Yep, ground rules, nothin' major but here's the big ones:

First one: ya don't use the word. You know what it is-"

"Do you mean Lame-"

"I said ya don't use it!" Luna snapped and Stella shrinked back. "Look- sorry. But you don't say it. Leese told you to use it for a reason, Linc's been trained to respond to it so if someone says it he just 'switches off' and goes at it.

Now none of you knew what was goin' on before, but ya do now so if you want another go you have to ask like a normal human bein'. I wouldn't count on gettin' it though, after all this Linc's kinda done with sex until Leese backs off on the weird shit; doesn't want to risk any more kids."

"But we're pregnant!" Stella protested, then flushed when the other women stared. "S-shut up you all did it too!"

Luna rolled her eyes, "yeah well Linc's not puttin' it past her to do something to get ya preggo again anyway. For the record; neither should any of you.

Two: when your squirt comes out you can use the house whenever you want, but you gotta let us know before you do so we can get supplies and fix the schedule and stuff. If you don't we'll still take 'em but we'll have to have words about you takin' a shift in Baby Jail.

Three: don't take on Leese yourselves. She's still gonna try and experiment on your kids, probably you at the same time as well. Yeah we told her not to but she still does shit anyway. If you find her tryin' it let us know and we'll sort her out ourselves, if you take her on she has a kid of her own that's basically an alien that defends her with lazer eyes.

Four: you can stay over too as long as you let us know beforehand. We don't have much space though so you're probably getting the couch or a sleeping bag. We're lookin' at expanding the house -because fuck knows we need to- but until then it's close quarters for everyone."

Five: if any of you see Lily near Lincoln and there's no other adults nearby you have to stay there and make sure she doesn't try anything."

Stella put her hand up, "why? Lily's always been sweet when I've been here."

"Yeah, she's nice." Paige affirmed.

Luna snorted, "yeah well you wouldn't say that if you saw half the shit she's into. Bottom line; she already flat out raped Linc- she was comin' down from giving birth ta triplets on the orgasmo juice but still- so now she's not allowed near him without company to make she doesn't just use that word to get going. Don't be fooled by her; she's nice but god knows she a filfthy fuckin' pervert and she'll do ya' in all the worst ways if you give her five minutes."

The women were doubtful, but the silent shudder from the Loud woman's shoulders convinced them to at least accept the rule as a given. "All right, if there's no other questions you lot just follow me and I'll lead you to your kids' Kindergarten I guess…"

Luna lead the way, and the five remaining women walked and waddled behind her through the living room. Luna quietly opened the door that was being used to block off the sounds of children to reveal the Loud House at breakfast time.

The Kitchen had ten high chairs situated where the kitchen table had once been, filled with infants and toddlers of around a year or younger. Currently Lynn Sr was finishing up some mushy vegetable mix in several pans while Lincoln and Rita were distracting the babbling children with toys, five to each.

"Lupa! No biting Lemy!" He admonished, gently pulling Lemy's fingers from her mouth before stuffing the platinum haired infant's with a teething keyring. The boy infant sniffled but was quickly lifted from his chair so he could be cradled to his father's chest as he let out a low hum.

Lincoln's free arm moved to distract the other children with a worn-down rabbit toy before they (mostly Lyra) grew jealous and demanded a ride of their own. Despite Lincoln's efforts Lemy still let out a few tears until he spotted his mother and gleefully pointed at her while emitting baby babble.

"As you can see it's controlled chaos in 'ere, but we manage." Luna allowed the other women to cycle into the room. "Normally there'd be at least two other girls helpin' out, but we all work so we sometimes get busy. When this happens we have to make do, and we do don't we little guy?"

Luna leaned down and let Lemy grab her finger over Lincoln's shoulder, prompting Lincoln to notice the group. "Oh, I didn't know you were-"

He recognised Stella and blushed as he realised his old friend was amoing the new mothers. "- here already."

".. Hi Lincoln," Stella awkwardly waved.

"Yeah. 'Orientation' is done." Maggie remained as oddly dour in tone as always. "Can't say I saw this in your future."

"Yes well, I think it was a surprise to a lot of people," Lincoln dryly replied. "Luna could you help me? Lyra's going to get jealous if you play with him and not her."

"Dude I'll take your shift, talk with the girls." Luna lifted Lemy over to over her and settled into the stool Lincoln had been sitting on. "C'mon little dudes, time to rock out with Momtie Lunes!"

Left without an infant to care for-rare for him now- Lincoln was left with no choice but to present himself to the assorted women in the kitchen. "… So this is awkward but, I kind of don't remember the last time any of us met."

"Lisa filled us in," Margo Roberts informed him. "Not exactly sure if I believe her, but you were pretty dead eyed when we fuc-"

"Not in front of the children." Lynn Sr muttered, visibly bag eyed himself.

Lincoln nodded and the crowd meandered over to the living room.

"So yeah," Margo settled into a chair as the ladies sat at the table. "I thought you were pretending to be a zombie until we got started."

"It was kind of appealing." Maggie's slightly rough voice warmed.

"I honestly thought you were completely awake!" Stella squeaked. "Like, that thing with the tongue and then the _rhythm_."

Lincoln flushed with embarrassment. "Well you can thank Ronnie Anne for that, it turns out that after we broke up because of… you know."

"Your millions of kids?" Margo asked. "Yeah, we noticed."

Lincoln pinched his nose, "yes _those_ , anyway she still came over after I went into autopilot for… intimacy, and I just went at it. Apparently I just do whatever the woman wants like that."

Stella giggled. "Yeah you- oh sorry."

Lincoln's expression was less than enthused.

"What are you complaining about? _You_ got to have sex with loads of women and you're in this anyway!" Margo groused. "We're the ones carrying the squirts!"

"Actually I didn't, not really anyway." Lincoln bitterly countered. "I don't remember any of it, until I woke up a week ago- Luna came over to let me sleep properly for once- as far as I knew Ronnie hadn't even spoken to me since we broke up."

The wheels in Stella's mind turned. "Wait, so you don't remember the sex we had?"

"As far I knew I'd only ever been 'intimate' with Ronnie." Lincoln dryly confirmed.

"Luan told me-"

Lincoln cut Maggie off, "we don't talk about that."

"She does though." Maggie's lips turned into a smirk. "A lot."

Lincoln's eye twitched. "Well she can tell me all about that when we're deciding who gets the next shifts, anyway the bottom line is that until a few days ago I didn't know I had to worry about any…"

"Branches in the family tree?" The voice of Sam Sharp came from behind as she walked past to set across from him. "Yeah dude, but look on the bright side; you don't have to carry 'em. I mean, sure your sister 'volunteered' to take 'em but you got a _lot_ of girls pregnant so we still have to have ours."

Lincoln stared off in contemplation as something struck him.

"… You still there Lincoln?" Stella queried.

"Oh yeah." He looked at her with some odd laughter in his eyes. "Want to hear something funny?"

The women looked at each other in mild confusion before Margo shrugged. "Sure, might as well end today on a high note."

"Before all this started…. I always used a condom." Lincoln's voice warbled. "Every time, because both me and Ronnie were afraid she'd get pregnant.

Guess who's the only one after all this who still hasn't been?"

* * *

"You know you can just keep trying." Sid assumed a new, flexible position on her yoga mat. The woman was gleefully taking advantage of her restored mobility after unceremoniously having her own offspring deposited into Lisa Loud's waiting womb.

Along with Sid's sister's, Nikki's own and two from some girl she vaguely recalled from Royal woods named Cristina.

"… I never said I was jealous." Ronnie glared the ceiling. "We even broke up over this."

"Yeah but I know you haven't been taking your pill or using condoms, so how come-"

"Just let it go Sid."

"I mean, no one said you had to stop. It was kinda-sorta-slightly-rapey before anyway -"

"I'M NOT SHARING A MAN." Ronnie growled.

"But you did though, with me even," Sid distracted herself with memories of the empty-eyed but utterly _compliant_ white-blond man and pretzeled herself by accident. "Ouch! Ronnie help!

No, don't take a shower; I hate doing bread forms!"


	10. Slice of Life Stuff

**Slice of Life Stuff.**

_"Card Shark! I knew it was you all along!" Ace declared with his usual pizzazz. "Only you-"_

_"'Have the audacity to blah blah blah." Card Shark boredly droned. "Look Ace, we've been doing this for decades; my kid has a dental appointment at 2:30 so can we just skip the usual dust up? We both know you'll win, I'll get loose five minutes after the police take me into custody and vow vengeance and so forth, but that'll take fifteen minutes and I'm not sure if traffic's going to be co-operative-"_

_"Hah! Nice try you fishy fiend!" Ace grinned. "But everyone knows Dentist appointments_ _ never _ _run on time, by losing those fifteen minutes you will only be spared a quarter-hour of waiting for the last guy to get out!"_

_"I don't know Ace," One-Eyed Jack mused. "I think I know the place he's talking about and they're usually pretty good about timing, the secretary gets snippy if you come in late too."_

_"Yeah, come on man!" Card Shark bargained, dropping his stolen loot. "Look; I know you've got kids of your own, a friggin' army of them! Have a bit of empathy for a Dad drowning in responsibility; I'll even tell you where I stashed the rest I stole!"_

_Ace wavered, images of his_ _ many _ _(probably literally hundreds at this point if Card Counter's 'efforts' weren't being reigned in properly) costume-clad progeny filled his mind- along with every dental appointment they'd nearly missed for some reason or another. "… You'll really just give it up that easily?"_

_"I swear on my deep sea soul!" The villain solemnly declared._

_"Then I can't counter your claims," Ace sighed. "Show us your secret stash's location and we will allow you to escape this once!"_

_"Sure thing, it's in this location!" The villain pulled a cheap cell phone out from somewhere and showed the heroes the location via online map._

_"… You used a gym locker?" Ace raised an eyebrow._

_"Well not everyone gets super-insurance for their kid's hospital cover Ace!" Card Shark folded his arms and glared. "_ _ Some _ _of us have to make cuts where they can."_

_"Yeah, have some sympathy for a working father Ace!"_

_"You too Jack?"_

_"It's part of getting older Lincoln." Jack nodded._

_Ace sighed. "What is the world coming to- wait. What did you just say?"_

_"You need to wake up Lincoln, Lupa's found the lighter again." Jack replied in an older man's voice._

"BRUIUH!" Lincoln's eyes snapped open and he threw himself upwards in his bed, narrowly missing his own father's head. "What is- who? Dad?"

"Well that's me alright." Lynn Sr chuckled as he recovered from stumbling back. There was a squirming movement from Lincoln's chest, and he looked down to see Lulu loosely held in his arms.

Normally his bedroom was a hallowed sanctuary _away_ from the Loud Spawn and he wouldn't dare take any single one into here regardless since the rest would become jealous and demand the same. Last night however there had been some kind of ruckus and between Luna's twins becoming a ball of brown and slightly more greyish-brown haired destruction, Lacy gleefully speeding away to 'play' hide and run from the adults (he was so proud when she'd started walking too…) and Lily's trio of terrors ominously overseeing the mess it was judged by unanimous vote to remove the most dangerous piece from the board before whatever was going to happen next.

Now Lulu was awakening from the jostling, she opened one eye and it was a near solid yellow with a cat like slit running from top to bottom. She blinked and opened both and they were now both human. But as she opened her mouth to yawn her jaw split into five and from her throat came out two feeler like fleshy threads that flopped upwards, their tips landed on Lincoln's check with a wet splat.

"I think she's hungry." Lynn Sr remarked with good humour. "You know Mrs Levantine probably wouldn't miss a cat or two."

"Yeah but I don't want to change a bone and hair filled diaper again," Lincoln grumbled and futilely tried to pull the now adhered feelers from his face before giving up. He instead rose in his rumpled clothes from last night, infant abomination in tow. "What was that about Lupa finding the lighter again?"

"Oh nothing, it's just breakfast time and you weren't waking up." His father shook his head. "Come on, Rita's already downstairs with the rest of the tykes."

* * *

"… I'm happier not knowing?" Lincoln asked upon seeing the kitchen, surpisingly clean but with a suspiciously new coat of quick dry paint over every wooden surface.

"Very much." His mother nodded. "I think there's still some Apple Puree in the pan if you feel like freeing yourself."

The main nodded, and quickly marched over to the pan, checked the temperature and drew a spoonful out to hold next to Lulu's face. Lulu's nostrils widened as the scent reached her, she turned her eyes to the glistening ambrosia.

SHLUPP! One tendril popped off. Lincoln drew the spoon just out of her reach as she went for it.

SHLOORP! The other disconnected with less finesse, leaving a light welt behind and Lincoln let the infant grab the spoon with both hands. Alas his fingers weren't fast enough to stop Lulu from not only stuffing the spoon into her 'mouth' but swallowing it entirely.

"Dang it. Looks like we're going to looking for metal in her diaper again."

"I think Lisa's working on another pacifier," Rita recalled. "Something a bit hardier this time."

"I sure hope so," Lynn Sr leaned down to his 'chewing' grandchild and gave a gentle pinch to her cheek. "You're a cute little thing, when you're not a nightmare from the darkest depths of hell anyway, but gosh darn it I liked those golf clubs!"

Lulu made a vaguely happy-laughing gurgle.

"Where are the rest of them?" Lincoln looked around, surprised to see no infants, and more so not to hear any in the background. "Did.. did the girls come and pick them up? Is Lisa's the only one here today?

Is… is this what a holiday feels lik-"

"Apologies elder sibling," Lisa's dry tone cut his ramble short as she came into the kitchen. "The others are currently in their assigned sleep pods after the last night's 'activities'. However they are set to finish their cycles in-" she checked the clock, "staggered intervals at five minutes apart, starting in ten minutes with subject sixteen."

"Oh that's.." Lincoln raced his mind to try and remember the name of the numbered child. "… Liby, I think?"

"Liby Loud is subject fourteen," Lisa corrected. "But I digress; this is the new pacifier." She presented the green, seemingly ordinary pacifier from her pocket. "This will help avoid another 'incident' so long as it is used properly; observe."

Lisa engaged her Offspring Oral Opening Technique (OOOT), a highly technical set of movements suspiciously similar to the 'here comes the airplane' procedure employed by more banal parental units around the world. However as this was designed and improved upon by one Lisa Loud it worked far more effectively, and as Lulu opened her mouth in stupefied shock from the otherworldly movements the pacifier popped in without a problem.

Instantly her still slightly segmented face started folding into her more human visage and one feeler that had remained dangling as she'd chewed suddenly sucked back in like a piece of spaghetti. Lulu looked around with a little surprise, then raised one hand up and pulled out of the pacifier. The hand holding the pacifier remained human, but her other one started unravelling into multiple plant vine-esque tentacles. Then; as she pushed the pacifier back in the tentacles curled back together into a more normal appendage.

The infant giggled and starting 'playing' with other parts of her body in the same way.

"Yes S-12, I'm glad that you find this amusing." Lisa let a little smile surface, before returning her attention to the other adults. "Now I believe that this should suffice as a countermeasure to any further 'incidents', now unless my services are needed for-"

"Come and have breakfast with us dear," Rita calmly grabbed the retreating scientist and sat her down at the kitchen table. "You've been cooping yourself up again and we've barely seen you."

"I assure you parental un- ooohf!"

Her lap was suddenly filled with experimental offspring who grabbed onto her mother's labcoat and stared upwards with pacifier in mouth.

"Lulu wants her mother as well, and I want to eat with both hands for once." Lincoln bluntly told her, before slipping into his own seat and relaxing for the first time in weeks. Lisa rolled her eyes and performed the OOOT once more, this time inadvertently allowing her mother to see the exact angles her arm took in the more intricate parts of the technique.

"Lisa Marie Loud! Why can your hand do that!?" Rita gasped upon seeing her daughter's arm twisting in decidedly inhuman ways to distract her _own_ daughter to feed her without the usual contest.

"Do not distress maternal unit; I have merely temporarily replaced several of my standard issue limbs and organs with superior lab made models. They are far more effective for both laboratory work and child rearing- as you have observed."

"Can you put them back in later?"

"Affirmative paternal unit, it will be part of an experiment to observe how the body reacts to-"

"I'll just take the yes without the stress thanks."

"Yery well- Subject Twelve please give me back my prosthetic."

"Sorry Leese, I told you she likes metal!"

"... It is a minor concern, I suppose this indicates a flaw in her programming. I'll update her human-recognition subroutine to include artificial-"

"You programmed her!?"

"Why did you think she wasn't eating the rest of your progeny for additional nutrients and individual care?"


	11. Swap Meet and A Long awaited arrival

**Swap Meet  
**

"So yeah, Luna suggested the name and I thought it kinda fit so Lina it is." Sam shrugged as best she could with one Lemy Loud sitting in her lap, trying not to wince as he pulled at his second mother's blonde strands.

"Really?" Lincoln deadpanned, sneaking a quick look at Luna's unflinching features before casting his eyes back to the pale blonde baby in his arms. "You know that name sounds _really_ familiar…"

"Yeah she said you thought of it, along with some of the others for the… others." Sam trailed off, clearly uncomfortable as always when thinking about the Loud family's 'arrangement'.

"Oh, you know I was just thinking about why all the new babies had all names from that 'dream' I had." Lincoln's suspicious eyes turned back to Luna, whose lips revealed a slightly spiteful smirk.

"Well you know, maybe you just saw the future?" Luna teased, Lyra fussing with a juice box in her little hands. "You know, a bit of foresight like Lucy goes on about."

Luna may have once claimed to hold no grudge against Lincoln, but the white haired man had known better than to trust in the seeming endless chill of his elder sister since he was a boy. Whether she meant it vindictively or not the fact that he'd slept with her wife, conscious or not, had spawned resentment that was peaking through in little barbs here and there.

Like convincing several of their new mothers to name their children after the nightmare scenario he'd dreamt about before.

"Yeah, sure." For now he'd let her have her 'payback', he'd be sore if someone knocked up Ronnie Anne even if it was an accident. That and they were having a little picnic of sorts to help ease Sam into their arrangement before she let Lina stay at the house for the first time. Their band was due to leave in a few days, and Sam needed to wean herself away from her child for the first time.

Under the shade of the trees, with the with sunlight peeking through it would have been a waste to ruin it with hard questions anyway.

Lemy was squirming again, trying to reach up to touch Sam's face while babbling babyish sounds. "Looks like he missed you."

"Aww," Sam dragged her eyes from her blood daughter to play a little with her (Step? Surrogate?) son. "I missed you too little guy, still rocking on?"

Lemy bounced as a yes and held his hands out for a hug, which Sam granted and promptly got a wet kiss on the cheek.

"Wow, I think he's got a favourite." Luna remarked dryly, then looked down to Lyra. "How about you mini-me, did ya miss me?"

Lyra looked up briefly, then returned to sucking out her juice box nonplussed.

"Dang, cold as ice." Luna sighed.

"Wait till _after_ she's had her juice," Lincoln advised. "Nothing gets between her and grape."

Luna gave him a flat look, then looked down at Lyra again who was sucking contently on her straw. For all the difference it made Luna may have well been a chair.

"For what it's worth, she ignores me too when she's-"

"I get it Linc, I really do." Luna shook her head. "It's just that we don't really get much time with her an' Lemy. We've gotta make the most of it before we hit the road again."

Lina started fussing a bit and well-trained instincts told him to carefully raise a bottle to her lips, which the infant helpfully avoided. Resisting an urge to eyeroll he instead put the bottle down for a moment and squeezed the teat to get a drop or two of warm formula milk ono his fingers, then traced the fluid onto Lina's lower lip.

Lina squirmed away for a second and nearly swiped it off with a onesie-clad hand, but he gently distracted the limbs long enough for a curious little tongue to poke out and taste the formula. Lina's blue eyes popped open, and she licked again and looked around for more. Lincoln quickly but carefully grabbed the bottle, squeezed the teat so more fluid rested on the tip and guided it to her face.

The infant looked at the bottle with wide eyes, but the white fluid must have been familiar as when the teat came in range she let it poke towards her mouth and opened just a little to taste it again. Her eyes widened and her hands tried to grasp the bottle as she started sucking hard.

"Careful there, I don't want this coming up again." Lincoln let the bottle rest so that she couldn't drink too fast and give herself stomach-ache.

He suddenly felt eyes on him, and a quick look confirmed both Sam and Luna were watching.

Luna whistled, "See Sam, told ya it'd be fine."

"I-I guess so." Sam's slightly sad tone prompted Lemy to pat at her cheek, gurgling something probably meant to be comforting. "She always fights a feeding, but you just…"

"It's practice," Lincoln assured her, still holding the bottle to prevent Lina's greed becoming regret. "If you want to take a shift or two you'll probably have it down too."

"We'regoingontheroadsoonnowaywecanhelp!" Luna blurted, and squeezed Lyra a bit as her Post Baby Torment Disorder kicked in. Lyra for her part glared up, then tossed her newly empty juice box at Luna's face.

"Ow!" Luna declared more in surprise than actual pain. "What- oh, sorry Lyra."

Lyra's less than pleased little face brooked no sympathy, even as the arms around her loosened.

"Let her steam for a minute, then tickle her stomach." Lincoln advised. "Not for more than a minute or she'll get grumpy again-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know how to take of my kid too Linc," Luna rolled her eyes but released one of her hands to make an 'ominous' tickling motion in Lyra's field of vision. Lyra gasped and hid her face in her own hands, but with a clear slit in her fingers showing a big brown eye and shy smile.

"Jeeze, you two are old hands at this aren't you?" Sam muttered, looking down to Lemy with an uncertain smile. "I have to admit, I've been feeling a little out of my depth here."

"So are we, we just hide it better."

* * *

**A long awaited arrival.**

The somewhat infamous Loud House had undergone many changes across the years. From the gradual expansion of Lori's generation of children, to Lily's long awaited departure signifying the final end of that era of shared childhood, to the sudden blossoming a new generation that rapidly filled the once empty bedrooms that had previously housed their mothers.

Today however was a more physical, and well overdue change.

"All right, that there should do it." Lana sighed as she tightened the last bolt. "Now for the test!"

A glove clad finger pressed down, and the fourth and final new toilet she'd installed flushed with ease.

" _I'm so proud!_ " Her father declared with wet eyes, her mother nodding in rapid agreement.

"Seriously Lana I don't know how to thank you," Lincoln agreed. They were standing in the technically sixth bathroom of the house, albeit the new four were far smaller than the pre-existing two. Additionally only the two of the four that were added into the upper stories had compact showers within, the remaining settling for just the toilets and sinks.

The renovations had not been fun.

Some might have considered six bathrooms overkill even for this family. Those people would have been proven very wrong when the often fluctuating numbers would swell and lines would be forming for even this relative abundance of butt relief.

"Yeah I was here for the bathroom line too you know, no need to thank me." Lana sighed and started stripping off her gloves. "Well actually, if you had some of that leftover pie then-"

"BUUURP!" The blonde headed form of Lizy Loud issued a belch from the potty she sat on, somehow having obtained the last slice of apple pie from the night before.

"…. You know I can just make a new one. You've certainly earned it" Lynn Sr Laughed and rapidly made his way to the kitchen, his wife following to leave Lincoln, Lizy and Lana alone.

Excepting of course the many children hanging from his baby-harness. But that was a given when talking with the white-haired man now.

"Ahh, I guess she takes after me." Lana knelt down and ruffled the toddler's head with her sweaty hands, prompting a giggle. "I would've gone through garbage to get the last slice."

"You went through garbage for _fun,_ " Lincoln dryly remarked, unfastening one of the newer additions. Lina, Darna, Vikki and Marla were only a few months old and together formed a new generation of their own that was marginally less weird than their incestuous siblings.

They still needed to poop a lot though.

"See that Lina," Lincoln held his progeny with one hand and pointed at one of the many brown potties surrounding the toilet with the other, "you get to go in there when you're bigger. That way daddy gets to have clean hands for longer than ten minutes!"

Lina opened one sleepy eye and squirmed a bit.

Then burped.

Then vomited florescent green chunks over his smock, prompting several now _very_ awake and sticky siblings to start crying.

"… I don't know what I was expecting." The tired man sighed.

"Hehe, da-da gwee!" Lizy pointed and laughed.


	12. Actions and Consequences

**Actions and Consequences**

Sweet was good.

Food was good unless veggies, but sweet was gooder-better. Lyra sucked more sweet from her bowl, happy in her chair.

Lemy was happy because he got a sweet too but he was fat because he kept stealing lollies when Moms and Dad don't looking. Like now, he was looking at her sweet like he wanted more- but Lyra was smarter so she pulled hers away and-

SLPPSH!

Oh no.

All the sweet fell out the bowl.

"Lyra?" Dad was looking. "Wh- dang it,"

Dad pulled out a clean tissue from his bag and cleaned up all of Lyra's sweet. "What happened?"

"Lemy want my sweet!" Lyra explained- pointing at the fat greedy pig boy with a big open mouth for gobbling.

"Nu-uh, I don't do it!" Lemy lied really bad!

"Hmm," Dad was looking at her like she did a bad thing! "But you still threw your sweets out didn't you?"

"Yea…" the bowl was in her hand. "But Lemy-"

"If Lemy steals your sweets we'll punish him then," Dad said dadly. "But right now it's bathtime so lets get ready-"

"Bath? But not done!" Dad got closer and got ready to take her sweets but the bowl still had stuff in it! Lyra quickly stuck her spoon in to get it- but it only got a little bit of the sweet so she used her finger to get more off.

"Lyra…" Dad stopped so she could get the last white gooey bits.

Lemy was a pig though and Dad noticed this time!

"Lemy, don't eat like a dog!" the gross boy was holding his bowl on his face again and licking it. Dad was annoyed and pulled it off him- and Lemy had bits of sweet all in his stupid poofy hair.

"Heeey!" Lemy whinged.

"Use your spoon- or least a finger like Lyra," Dad grumbled and took Lyra's bowl away too. But it was fine because there was only sweet-tasting spit on it now anyway. "You're lucky it's bath time or you'd be getting the rag again."

Lyra's face screwed up as she remembered the The Rag. It was a nasty long cloth thing that dad kept in his bag with all the other stuff. If someone got sticky after bathtime he got it out and scrubbed their face with it and soapy water- and it wasn't fun!

"Bath?" Lemy's eyes were doing that funny thing when they poked out a little-

Wait?

"Not bath!" Lyra demanded in horror; they'd had one yesterday!

"Yeah, no bath!" Lynn also said, clapping her hands down in her chair table thing.

"No bah!" Lari said too and started saying it a lot. Sooner everyone else was saying it too except the grownups who were making that weird face like they were thinking about something nasty.

"Lyra come on!" Lemy waved at her.

Lyra looked at him, and saw he was already out of his chair and was climbing down. Lyra gasped as she realised what was happening- they were running away!

Lari and Lacy always ran away after Lunchtime so that maybe if they stayed away long enough the grownups would forget about them until after Bathtime. But they got caught because they're not smart, but _Lyra_ was smart and Lemy was smart enough to know she was smart so he was helping her escape so they could escape together!

The grownups were busy because everyone was talking about no baths so Lyra pulled herself out of her chair and started climbing down- her sticky finger helped even!

Lemy was waiting for her at the bottom and helped catch her with his head, but she shushed him and pointed to the white wall the grownups put up to stop them running away.

"How we go through?" Lemy wondered.

Lyra thought about it. The wall had a door in it, but the grownups locked it and the lock was outside- but the lock was really easy- even Lemy or Auntie Leni could open it.

"Idea!" Lyra proclaimed quietly. "I go over and undo lock, then you go through too!"

"How you undo lock?" Lemy asked her like she was lying.

"I use broom!" Lyra ponted to a broom on the other side of the wall.

That made sense; "okay." Lemy nodded and they snook over to the door.

"How you go up?"

Lyra pointed at Lemy. "You hold me up!"

"Why me hold you?"

"Because _I'm_ going over."

Lemy frowned, "but- ummm-"

Lyra looked around- the grownups were nearly done. "Quick! quick!"

Lemy grumbled but tried to grab her anyway, and tried to push her up by the foots so she could grab a sidewise wood part- but he was too weenie to push her up enough! Lyra frowned and took her foot out of his hand- and pushed off of his head instead!

Lemy gasped in shock and let go- but Lyra was faster and grabbed onto the sideways wood at the top and pulled herself over.

But the top parts were all pointy so she couldn't stay- she just fell over the top and on the other side, landing on her bottom.

"Owww," she whinged.

"Lyra!" Dad's voice sounded mad, she looked back slowly and saw Dad giving her Early Bedtime Eyes.

"Oh no!" She gasped, and quickly went to run away- there was a good hiding place in-

"Wwwwmmnn," something sounded hurt and Lyra looked back to see Lemy holding his eye.

"Lemy?"

A single big tear came out of his good eye and his face turned red as he started to sob. Lyra stumbled forward and reached through the bars at him, but he turned away. Lyra just sat there, unsure of what to do next. Then she remembered her foot pushing into his head- and understood why Lemy was crying.

"I-I sorry Lemy!" She called out, but Lemy just cried harder. Suddenly he was scooped up into Dad's white shirted arms and Lyra felt herself lifted up the handle on her back.

She looked up and saw Auntie Leni's face- but it was _sad_.

"I _sorry_."

* * *

Lyra didn't go to the bath after all.

Instead she stayed with Auntie Leni in the kitchen, while everyone else went upstairs. She tried to say something but Leni wasn't talking very much- she didn't seem angry but she was quiet in a way that was scarier than if she was yelling at her. Not that Auntie Leni really yelled but it probably would have felt better if she did.

They stayed that way for a really long time, but when Dad came down Lyra wanted it to be longer.

Dad came over to the table and nodded to Auntie, who got up and left Lyra with him. She was sat down in a chair, not her big chair but one of the adult ones that didn't have any sideways handles for her to climb down from. Dad was right across and he seemed scary too even though he didn't look angry.

"Lyra, do you know what you did?"

Lyra looked up at him, but she couldn't look at his face she looked at his shoulder ins-

"Look at me Lyra."

She looked closer to his eyes, but not right at the blue part- more around his nose instead.

"What do you think you did?"

Lyra sniffed as she spoke, "I p-popped Lemy's e-e-e-uuhrh- ISORRYISORRYISORRY-"

She babbled and broke as she cried.

Suddenly there was something warm around her, but she couldn't see what since her eyes were running too much.

"Lemy's eye will be okay," Dad was hugging her. "It's not forever, but he's going to have a nasty bruise because of what you did to him."

Lyra felt hiccups coming up and Dad left for a bit, then came back with some water in her purple sippy cup. He let her drink some down in between sobs and she felt a bit better.

"Can you talk now?"

Lyra nodded, "yea."

"Do you want to apologise to Lemy?"

Lyra nodded again.

Dad let out a breath, "well, he probably doesn't want to see you right now- we'll have to wait for an hour first okay?"

"Okay…" Lyra hiccupped again.

"… and I'm going to have to talk to your Moms about what kind of punishment you'll be getting."

Lyra trembled and felt like she was shrinking a bit. "D-do you _have_ to?"

Dad was sure. "Sorry Lyra, but you need to be punished for this. You didn't just make a little problem like running from bathtime, you _hurt_ Lemy."

That was true. She hurt Lemy really bad- so bad she thought his eye popped. But she didn't want Moms to know!

"B-but, I go bed early for month instead!" She offered. "I let Lemy have my toys for ages too, no _need_ to know!"

Dad was doing that weird breathing again, "it's not just about me punishing you Lyra, it's about them knowing that Lemy was hurt and they _have_ to know."

Lyra looked up at Dad's blue eyes properly, " _please_ Dad- I don't want them to know it."

Dad's face was sad, and so were his eyes. She could feel his arms around her again and he pulled her up into a kind of hug before he sat down in her chair.

"I know how you feel Lyra, but it's not going to change that you did the bad thing." She sniffled again and he let her push her face into his orange shirt. "But what can change things is if you prove that you're really sorry."

"How?" she mumbled into his shirt.

She felt his arms move, and suddenly Dad's fingers were under her chin, and he gently pushed her face up and out so she was looking up at him again. "You can start by telling Lemy you're sorry, after that I'll let you tell your side of the story to your moms tonight before we decide anything alright? That way you can show them that you mean it."

Lyra nodded again, and hiccupped and cried for a bit longer.

* * *

Lincoln and his daughter stayed in the Kitchen for another fifteen minutes, though Lyra was sure it was longer. By the time they went up Lemy was fully patched up by Lisa (though 'creative solutions' were off the table by familial decree) and he was ready to talk to Lyra.

He said no to her first apology, still sour about being kicked in the face. But her burst of tears instantly evaporated his bitterness and they ended up crying together.

Lyra ended up crying again that night when she had to explain herself to her Moms through the tablet and had to stop partway through. Lincoln finished the story with her, and after a bit of discussion outside the nursery the three parents agreed that Lyra would indeed suffer a few punishments. But perhaps not as many as if she had tried to deny her actions.

The point however was made, and while Lyra was still somewhat rambunctious- she was a bit more careful with her brother from now on. A little nicer and less petty from what she was like before.

She even stopped calling him fat for a whole week before they resumed their usual rivalry. But for a toddler that was practically a lifetime's atonement anyway.


	13. Lulu and Grandma!

**Lulu and Grandma!**

Rita sighed as she fumbled for her glasses.

 _No, not those_ \- too light for reading.

Those were her Sunglasses, though why she kept them around in the first place was beyond her at this point. It had been years since she could see anything without a prescription and wearing Sunglasses over another set was just uncomfortable.

 _Finally_ , her fingers found her heavier set and neatly perched them upon the bridge of nose.

"Buh?"

The little voice caught her ear, and she turned to see a certain bewinged grandchild of hers looking up at her with curiosity from her bedroom wall.

"Lulu dear, you know you're not meant to climb on the walls." Rita sighed.

Lulu raised her hands and much to Rita's surprise revealed little suckers as opposed to her usual plaster-ruining claws.

"Well I suppose that's fine," Rita issued a bemused sigh, then opened her arms. "Come over here my little monster!"

Lulu shook her buttocks like a cat preparing to pounce upon her prey, then did exactly that! Her suckered back legs pushed off and the bat like wings sprouting through her onesie flapped as she flew across the room.

"Ooof!" Rita gasped as the little abomination landed upon her chest with a bit too much force to be comfortable. "I think you're getting a bit too heavy for this!" Nonetheless her arms wrapped beneath Lulu's backside to stop her from slipping.

Lulu stared up and blinked.

Then there was a high pitched squeaking sound, like air escaping a balloon and Lulu started to shrink.

"No!" Rita hurried. "You're fine, you're fine- please don't deflate _again_!"

Lulu gave another head tilt, then plucked out her pacifier (whose effectiveness seemed to be increasingly circumstantial, Rita dryly noted) and stuck her thumb in instead. She made a bodily motion as if she was blowing into it and she started expanding again… and regained her previous weight.

"All right, stop before you get too big!" Rita interjected "you're just right now."

The abomination pulled out her thumb and gave a smile. A human one no less.

"Well isn't that a sight to see?" Rita gasped, then looked a bit closer. "And is that a tooth!?"

Sure enough, set in Lulu's gums was a new tooth just poking it's sharp white tip through the pink flesh.

"Gah!" Lulu affirmed.

"Well I'm sure Mommy already knew, but be sure to let her know okay?" Rita requested.

Entirely so that her beloved and well behaved little genius would experience the joy of her progeny's milestone of course. Not at all because Rita Loud was still sour over her many grandchildren's cause of conception, or the _many_ wails her own children had provoked from her lips during their own breastfeeding thanks to their sharp new teeth.

Not at all.

Lulu gurgled in a vaguely approving tone before raising her hands to Rita and batting in the direction of her face. "Buh!"

"What's this?" Rita drew her head a bit closer.

"Buh!" Lulu's fingers reached out- normally for once- and touched at Rita's reading glasses. "Gagh?"

"Ah, my glasses?" Rita laughed a bit uncomfortably, she supported Lulu with one arm and used the other to push her glasses a bit further up. "Sorry to say it but these are something Grandma needs to read, my eyes aren't as good as they used be after all."

Lulu blinked.

And then she smiled.

 _Her_ smile.

Rita repressed a shudder as her most terrifying grandchild exposed her abominable orifice and her tendrils reached out, quickly snaking behind Rita's rims and subjecting her a closeup of the fleshy tips she never would have wanted. They were vaguely oval shaped things with some kind of meaty 'hairs' on the bottom that pulsated with Lulu's heartbeat, and extended further towards Rita's eyes.

"Lulu, honey… c-could you stop?" Rita gasped. "You're scaring Grandma!"

The hairs stopped their advance, then suddenly the tips grew transparent little orbs like fresh dew. The orbs filled with light, and Rita was subjected to a series of colour-coordinated flashes that would surely have resulted in a fit for an epileptic. Rita let out a yelp, closed her and eyes and pulled way her face- letting her glasses clatter down to the floor as they were drawn against the still present tendrils.

"Gah…" Lulu said to herself, ignoring Rita's decidedly less than pleased glare.

"Lulu…" Rita groaned as she knelt down and grabbed her glasses, and replaced them onto her nose- just in time to witness what was to come. Whatever Rita might have said next was lost as the infant looked up, sucked her face back to her human configuration and her eyes _bulged_.

The brown pools so reminiscent of her mother's and just a shade off of Lynn Sr's stretched and expanded. Her eyelids peeled back, revealing red veins pulsing under strain as the eyeballs pushed forward and-

Pop!

Her left eye suddenly hung from it's cord, dangling upon her cheek.

Rita gaped in horror, " _God in heaven-_ "

**POP!**

Her voice was cut off however as a viscous fluid sprayed over her, Rita gagged as something semi solid hit the back of her throat and she quickly spat it out. She opened her own eyes to find herself covered in bits of clear jelly and looked back with dread to see the ruined mess where Lulu's right eye used to be.

Not to worry, Lulu gave an annoyed grunt before she reached up with one hand and scratched at the gaping wound. She pulled away chunks of a red _sack_ and threw it to the ground before looking up to Rita with…

A Blue eye.

Rita's own shade in fact.

Indeed, in Lulu's left Socket there was another Blue pupil staring at her Grandmother's horrified visage, only slightly deformed by the optic nerve from the dangling original eye.

"Ahhhhh," a high pitched whine erupted from Rita's throat. Not loud enough to pierce the eternal ruckus outside of course, but enough to express sheer terror.

"Buh." Lulu decalred and pointed at Rita's eyes, then at her own.

Rita's arms were locked in sheer fear.

Seemingly impatient for whatever plan she had, Lulu reached up her right hand to her new eye and her fingernails extended into long, thin white claws. Carefully the little creature opened her eye to the maximum extent her of eyelids and pushed the thin nails from her index finger and thumb in between the eye and socket from exactly above and below.

Then she _tensed_ her fingers

"Oh God please no."

Rita Loud had had her fill of ruined eyes today-

But as Lulu cheerfully plucked out her newly grown right eye, she was getting an extra helping.

The socket this time was distressingly empty, save for a brief glimpse of squirming muscles before Lulu's eyelids fell together. Rita's own eyes then inevitably drew themselves to the new eye held between Lulu's fingernails like a grape between chopsticks.

She held the thing by the white, and the blue pupil stared blankly at the world but as Lulu moved it Rita realised the iris was still contracting and expanding with the change in light. The optic cord was a stubby little thing with a clean cut but it moved on its own, seemingly fishing for its home despite there being no muscles attached to any part of the pristine orb.

"Buh!" Lulu declared and Rita stared at her Granddaughter's pleased little face. None the worse for wear despite her apparent disfigurement Lulu pointed the orb at Rita like she was offering a morsel.

"Uhhhhh," Rita gulped back her bile. "N-n-no thank you dear, I'm um- already ate!"

What was left of Lulu's face seemed to screw up in confusion, then brightened. Her left hand pointed at Rita's left eye.

"… Please don't eat it."

Lulu shook her head, then pointed at her left eye, the one still inside the socket with her empty hand. Suddenly her fingernails expanded like they had on the other hand and within a second repeated the procedure that she had already conducted.

Now the abomination had two live eyes in her hands. Briefly that is as she equally as quickly raised her right hand, opened up the lids and filled the right socket with what had been her left eye. The thing lurched in its new home, spinning wildly before settling in, and focusing upon Rita.

"Tah Daaahh!" Lulu declared.

Rita Loud gazed upon her Granddaughter as she motioned again towards Rita's eyes, and she realised that Lulu was miming _replacing_ her eyes with Lulu's 'transplants'. The Grandmother swallowed and smiled shakily.

"Umm, no thank you dear-"

Lulu's smile dropped.

"-Maybe another time all right?" Rita quickly offered. "I don't suppose you could fix yourself could you? You'll give everyone a scare like this."

_Like you did_ _ me _ _._

Lulu issued a little sigh, then promptly fished out the socketed eye- POP- and stuffed it back into its original home. The still dangling original right eye suddenly sucked back in and the two orbs briefly spasmed within their homes before locking back into Rita, who not surprised in the least to see the once blue pupil had suddenly shifted to Lulu's (and Lisa's) own brown.

"Well all right then," Rita breathed, then spotted the mess around the room. There were little specks of melting vitreous humour making stains in her clothing and bed, and upon the floor was red, white and black remains of Lulu's original left eye.

Also there was still a twitching blue eye in Lulu's hands.

"I think we're going to have to clean up here." Rita declared with pressed lips. "Yep. Just a bit of cleanup before Lynn gets in and has a heart attack."

Lulu looked around and shrugged, before raising her hands to her mouth and dropping the eye inside. There was an audible pop as she crunched down and swallowed

"You know what; good start sweetie." Rita declared with shaking hands as she quickly walked to the door. "But why don't you let me finish things off, your… _stuff_ has been on the floor and we don't want you getting sick now do we?"

Lulu looked up as Grandma opened the door and quite calmly held her out, "gah?"

"Go play dear, _please_. Anywhere else for the next hours okay?"

Lulu looked up at Grandma, who was looked like she needed a nap. She quickly nodded and sprouted her wings before fluttering out of her hands. Grandma liked that so Lulu darted forward and gave her a quick face cuddle- not the playtime kind with Short Auntie. One where she just hugged Grandma's head and reached all the way around with her stretchy arms.

"Shank you dreear." Rita mumbled through overly pliable toddler.

"Buh buh!" Lulu popped off and flew away.

Leaving an unsteady Rita to calmly close the door and carefully walk over to her and her husband's bed.

There's she quite happily flopped face forwards into it, grabbed a pillow and started screaming.


	14. Taking a Seat

**Taking A Seat**

Lincoln Loud was a busy man.

Throughout his life, time had been in short supply. As a child he had been practically passed between family members for various tasks and trials that he approached with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

As a young man he had spent his teenage and college years desperately studying to prove that he was the equal of his effortlessly talented sisters, and working whatever odd jobs an arts student could get to cover the tuition his own cash strapped parents were nowhere near capable of covering.

Then as a graduate- he had rapidly discovered that connections meant more than talent and narrowly avoided the minimum wage fate of many of his peers by striking out in his cheap (and only semi-legal) car to find whatever work he could to cover his relatively meagre living costs while still having enough time to build a profile through his online work. Hoping to either get noticed, or grow enough of a fanbase on his own to become some one-in-a-million-success story like his sisters.

The reality of survivorship bias behind his idols success stories and making his own way without his sister's prodigal talent quickly struck however, and it was only sheer stubbornness that had held him through those tough years of moving from place to place- with only Ronnie as an occasional companion. Granted he had had an 'interesting' time for those years, but he also nearly found himself in an Acid Barrel at least two times.

Now of course he had no time at all.

Every spare minute was occupied with caring for one child or another. Someone needed feeding. Someone was a due a change. Everyone wanted hugs and his arms could only hold so many and he didn't dare take his eyes off of any of them or they'd have to send Lulu to go find the escapee in the vents again.

But there was one brief respite in his busy schedule, one moment of peace to himself that no one could begrudge the beleaguered young man.

That moment was his daily shower.

Every parent knows that keeping clean a household of children is a hopeless task, be it through nappy changes, thrown food or the dreaded plague of sniffles that attacks little bodies like a pandemic every season. But a shower? A shower is more than about getting clean, it is about having a moment to yourself and after you get you get to feel _human_ again for a whole minute.

And as Lincoln Loud gladly stepped into the old tub with its shower and make-do operating system, he was doubly grateful because this was his second such escape for the day.

* * *

_It was breakfast time and the usual chaos had ensued. Plates were clinking, semi coherent babble was echoing and Lyra and Lemy were having their unending spat over… everything._

_"_ _You take strawberry!" Lyra growled, and tried to use her spoon to fish out a piece of Lemy's own fruit salad in compensation._

_"_ _Nu-uh," Lemy drew his bowl away, already empty of any of his preferred pink fruit. "You no see!"_

_"_ _No need see!" Lyra jabbed at him with her spoon. "Strawberry_ _ gone _ _!"_

_Lincoln looked over to the two, leaving Leia and Londey to ignore everyone else in favour of making little castles with their food. He couldn't say for sure who was stealing whose food_ _ this _ _time, but his eyes spotted a bit of reddish discolouration combined from Lemy's clenched hand._

_"_ _Lemy?" Lincoln sighed as he came over. "Could you show me your hand?"_

_Lemy's eyes bulged, Luna's habitual silly expressions having been inherited or learnt by exposure no one could tell, and he looked away._

_Lyra little eyes darted to his hand at her father's question and she growled at seeing the juice. "You squished it!"_

_"_ _Nu-uh," he asserted, but as he clenched his little fingers more juice erupted from between them._

_"_ _Lemy…" Lincoln sighed and crouched down to look his son in the eyes. "Did you take Lyra's strawberry?"_

_Lemy's eyes darted around- looking for an escape. However, while Luna and Sam had recently returned to the Loud House, indeed having spent a week holidaying in Michigan with their kids (they even got to go to Dairyland…)- they had also only come in last night at two o'clock and were thus presently passed out upstairs. They were grown women with a liking for the finer things in life after all._

_Like hard booze and sex. Let no one ever say that the two ever let marriage and children slow them down._

_But the point was that Lemy had no help coming from them, and he knew it._

_Evidently knowing the jig was up he had no choice but to-_

_Quickly stuff his mouth with whatever was in his right hand and swallow._

_"_ _Lemy…" Lincoln facepalmed._

_The small boy smiled as if victorious and presented his now open hands as if they were proof of his innocence. "See, no Strawberry!"_

_They were practically shining with pinkish juice and there was a little pulp in between his fingers._

_"_ _You PIG!" Lyra shouted._

_"_ _No pig!" Lemy exclaimed. "You… um…"_

_"_ _We see you eat Strawberry!" Lyra growled. "You_ _ dumb _ _."_

_"_ _No dumb!" Lemy protested. "You mean!"_

_And they were back to the usual back and forth._

_"_ _You greedy!"_

_Lincoln mentally prepared himself to separate the two, looking over to see who could help him separate the two- no. Everyone else was busy. It was down to Lincoln again._

_"_ _You… stupid!"_

_"_ _PIG!" Lyra shouted again. "PIG! PIG! PIG!"_

_And like that it was time to separate the two before they started throwing things again_

_Lincoln's well practiced arm snaked forwards and grabbed Lemy by the handle, nonplussedly lifting him from his seat and stuffing the wriggling boy into one of his harnesses._

_"_ _Time for a time out Lemy," Lincoln tiredly admonished. "You know better than to steal each other's food._ _ Again _ _."_

_"_ _Nghhh" Lemy teared up in frustration, and glared back at Lyra, before calling her a name he hadn't heard before. "FRONT BUTT!"_

_Lincoln felt the plate smack the side of his head- the remains of Lyra's fruity breakfast leaking down his face as the plastic bowl clattered to the floor. It honestly wasn't much of a problem unto itself, aside from the fact that Lyra was now utterly red with sour rage and probably wouldn't calm down for a while._

_What was a problem was one little Lupa Loud spying the flying food. Not being one to let inspiration go to waste the little mischief maker promptly spooned up some of her own salad and flung it across the table._

_The denizens of the dining table fell silent as the assorted fruit separated in mid air, and then pelted a variety of Loud siblings from both generations._

_Lyle Loud blinked once, twice, as his pristine blonde hair that was so nice and freshly brushed by mommy was rendered sticky and gross by Lupa's gooey fruit chunks. His usually peaceful features twisted into a snarl and he threw a spoonful of fruit back towards the white haired spawn._

_Liena joined him._

_Then Lani, because why not?_

_And soon so did everyone else, all save the adults stated throwing fruit back and forth, gaining and losing targets as they became victim to friendly fire and missed shots. All the while Luna and Sam's twins hurled insults at each other and Lincoln quickly found himself soaked in fruity syrup._

* * *

Thus it was that shortly after having had his brief shower before donning his smock, he quickly found himself relieved of it so that it could begin a cycle in the wash. The kids were given an early bathtime (much to their displeasure) and at the end of it all Lincoln Loud was rewarded with the chance for a proper steamy soak since it would take a while for the smock to dry anyway.

The kids were currently being lectured by Lisa.

The potties were clean.

Even Sam and Luna had been roused from their hangovers to be adults for the morning by making sure the tempestuous twins didn't start another fight.

For the next half an hour Lincoln Loud could-

The bathroom door clicked as the old lock failed to hold, and four figures burst into the room. Lincoln was too tired to yelp and instead stared in annoyance at the source of suffering.

Specifically the pair of twins held one a piece to their parents.

"Luna… this was my _sanctuary_." He practically wheezed, clapping his hands over his naughty bits and looking his bag eyed big sister in the eye. " _Why?_ "

"Sorry Linc, smartarse here," Luna indicated to the little boy sourly sulking in her hands. "Still wanted his breakfast, so he tried eating off the floor like a scrub an' now he's gone and shit 'imself."

Lemy was red with embarrassment, "Mom! I spew no poo!"

"Ya went at both ends." Luna shut him down, and true to her word the tot both bore bits of semi-digested meal down his front and a nasty odour that Lincoln's nose identified as sadly familiar human waste.

"Okay, but we've got more than one shower for the kids now," Lincoln exasperatedly reminded her. "And how come you brought Lyra as well-"

Lyra bore the same marks as Lemy.

"… She tried to eat it too didn't she?"

Lyra's face was red again; "Lemy no get more STRAWBERRY!"

Sam's eyes bore the faraway look borne by soldiers remembering the battlefield, or in this case a parent who wanted to forget. The words fell from her lips like she was sleep talking rather than recounting a memory though; "It didn't matter if someone stepped in it- they just sucked it up like vacuums…"

"Yeah, basically that," Luna titled her head towards her wife. "Thing is, once they started half of the rest did too so now the other showers 're filled up now to try an' clean 'em all- we tried to leave you outta it but we've gotta use this one too Linc."

Luna's eyes were apologetic, and Lincoln couldn't help but cave in. A smelly toddler could spread their stink to more places than was fair for their size.

"Fine," Lincoln sighed and stepped out of the shower/tub. "Just maybe knock next time?"

"Surethingwilldo- Sammie let's get 'em in!" Luna quickly stripped down the messy boy she bore while Sam did the same for her girl. Lincoln's nose wrinkled at the full extent of the mess induced by little tummies filled with dirty food had produced.

"Do you want me to go and get them a change?" Lincoln offered, since his shower was probably over now anyway.

"Sure- actually…" Luna looked over Lincoln, noting his nude state. "Since you're already here an' gettin' clean, could you help us wash the little buggers?"

Lincoln stared at his big sister, then pointedly looked at the kids. The twins were poking their tongues out at each other, Lyra was winning by a mile though because she had inherited Luna's ridiculously long tongue.

"Dude they're not even two," Luna flately replied. "They're not gonna care."

Lincoln looked towards Sam, who was visibly bag eyed.

"Okay, _normally_ I'd care, but I just wanna get this done and go get coffee." Luna groaned. "It's not like she's not seen it anyway- just get down here and help dang it."

Luna's eyes were baggy, and red-rimmed. Her lips were pale and sick- and the smell coming from the two children probably weren't helping either.

Lincoln sighed and crouched down to assist in pulling the twins into the bath, initially keeping one hand to his crotch but rapidly giving up as he needed both hands to stop Lyra from wiggling away to do something to her brother (who was currently shoved under the shower). As one might expect his genitals promptly flopped down- the infamous 'log' swinging in sight of a now aghast Lyra, who stared in disgust at the prodigious penis.

"Ewww! Dad's _hairy_ and got a _willy_!"

Just another day in the life.

Luna stifled a laugh. "Yeah, yeah he does."

Lemy instantly rushed out of the shower. "Don't let Lyra touch!"

Lincoln blinked at the wriggling toddler in his hands, still applying a light grip to stop her from escaping, then turned to Sam and Luna with a clear question in his eyes.

"It's their new thing," Sam sighed, grabbing Lemy by the arms to drag him back under the shower while Luna soaped him up. "Lemy thinks girls have two butts for some reason-"

"Can see!" Lemy garbled through the water- pointing at Lyra's naughty bits. "Front butt-"

Luna started scrubbing his face- none too gently either.

"And Lyra hates it," the musical sister finished. "So she keeps on trying to pull Lemy's dick off to make 'em even. Funny the first time, lots'a cheap handy jokes. Not so sixteen times after. They promised they'd stop when we got home but you two are little liars ain't ya?"

Lyra stamped her little feet. "Lemy start it-"

"Un-uh, none'a that- you've got thirty minutes timeout already so don't go making it fourty!"

The toddler screwed up her face and stewed, clearly getting more agitated. Lincoln knew a problem when he saw one, and long trained instincts told him this would probably get worse the longer it went on. But as he leaned down to issue calming words Luna pulled Lemy from the shower, now nice and clean and ready to ruin it all again.

"Okay squirt, your turn." Luna pointed at the shower while Sam lifted the clean boy out for a toweling.

Lyra folded her arms and pouted.

Lincoln had had enough for one morning, and was sorely missing the shower anyway so he re-adjusted his grip and picked up the surprised toddler.

"Ah, nooo!" Lyra protested, looking up at him in betrayal as he stepped into the bath and approached the shower, "already clean!"

Apparently Lyra's definition of clean included vomit and faeces.

Hopefully she'd grow out of it. Like a _lot_ of her current behaviour.

But either way, for now she'd have to accept Lincoln's definition of clean. Thus, the two stepped into the shower, Lincoln shuddering with pleasure for just a moment as the lukewarm water ran over him even as Lyra yowled in protest.

The water slicked their skin and started cleaning away the gross fluid that still clung to them both, warming up sore muscles ever so slightly and relaxing the man despite the source of frustration in his arms. The heat wasn't up enough for steam at this point, probably thanks to multiple showers going at the same time but it was still a lovely experience for a man in his position nonetheless.

For just a moment Lincoln Loud was at peace with himself, the world and even his progeny. Then he looked down a the semi-sanitary tot and smiled. "See, isn't this nicer?"

Lyra Loud looked up at her father with utter indignation and uttered one word.

" _No_."

And promptly wriggled free from his now slippery arms.

"No, wait-" the man clutched at where she had been, but was too late to prevent her controlled fall. Of course, while Lyra was very young she was still a clever girl, and had forced herself down a path she knew there was a handhold, skidding down her father's surprisingly firm stomach, past his waist and reaching out to slow her momentum with-

The Flaccid Log stretched and bounced for a second as two small but strong hands clamped down on it with a co-ordination that would have impressed even Lynn. Lincoln's eyes widened in horror as Lyra Loud grabbed her father by the penis and used it as an imitation bungie cord, drawing some sound like a yelp from his lips before her slick hands had to let go and she bounced on her butt at the bottom of the tub.

It took a moment for the sensation to reach his brain, but the sole male of the previous Loud generation gasped as a peculiar sensation similar but different to being struck in his testicles radiated through his stomach. The two women stared in shock at the sight of their daughter effectively, if briefly and unintentionally molesting her father and were too stunned to stop her as she pulled herself up past the bath rim.

The small girl landed again on the floor and then sped off past them both through the door into the house at large, stopping only to turn around and poke her absurdly long tongue out at her possibly traumatised progenitor before running off out of sight, probably to hide in the vents again.

"I warn you!" Lemy declared smugly .

* * *

Lyra Loud's freedom was short lived, as Lisa had long since chipped her and Lulu would drag back any of her siblings from their hidey-holes if sufficiently bribed. She would pay for her insolence with an extra long shower and a full three hours in time out- with a promise for four if she touched her father's no-no spot again.

As for Lincoln, he was given a few minutes to himself to come to terms with himself and to just sit in peace.

Alas, his chosen spot was the living room couch- since the upstairs was still a madhouse at the moment. This would have been fine if not for Luan and Lynn taking their breaks at the same time.

"Hey Linc?" Lynn nudged him. "You okay?"

Lincoln turned to her and blinked. "… Not really, why?"

"Oh well," Lynn's lips trembled and Lincoln's 'Sister Nonsense' sense tingled. "Well me and Luan had a chat and we agreed that we'd have this talk together."

"… Could we skip this-"

"No, Linc- it's important you confront your trauma," Luan sat next to him, effectively wedging him in-between the two women. "I know it's hard but if you're s-strong you can get past this!"

A hint a snicker broke through her mask and Lincoln blearily scowled. "This isn't funny guys-"

"Linc," Lynn put her hand on his shoulder and drew his attention to her while she pulled out one of his old Ace Savvy figurines. "If we're going to help you, you need to help us-"

"This is bullshit Lynn-"

She ignored him and thrust the doll at him, "so if you're ready… we'd really a-a-preciate i-if-, oh god Luan y-you-"

Luan took the doll from Lynn's hand, and snicked herself while Lynn covered her face and tried to repress her 'tears'. "Don't mind her- she's just overwhelmed at from all of this. But what we mean to say is-"

Lincoln's mind put it together a moment before her words reached him, "fucking really gu-"

"Could you point to the spot where the bad girl t-touched y-you- BWAHAHA!" Luan broke down into hysterics.

"Do you want us to call Adult Protective Services!?"

"M-Maybe get you some hot coco and-"

"I swear I'll give Lacy coffee."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> Luna has many fun expressions and antics when she's a background character, most obviously in season one when she seemed to be practically the only sister so prominently showing her personality in this way. She also seemingly has an absurdly long tongue that can apparently at least reach her chin or possibly her ear if perspective isn't jarring things if certain scenes from Study Muffin are taken into account.
> 
> Since Lemy takes after her in most depictions, he's inheriting her funny faces here- particularly when he's panicking or stressed while Lyra gets whatever mutant gene that would let Luna lick her own ear.
> 
> For those wondering, yes; Lyra had to take a seat in her time out :P


	15. Exercise Motivation

**Exercise Motivation**

It was morning, and it had begun again.

Not the usual chaos, though that well underway; but the plague of noise that emitted from Lincoln Loud's now much hated phone.

" _Baby! Baby! Baby! OOO!_ " The infuriatingly empty lyrics resounded through Lincoln's room, much to the cheery joy of the siblings three who sat on the sad man's bed.

"Baybee! Baybee!" Lyra cheered.

"Bayby booo!" Lemy 'danced' with a clumsy bob up and down.

Lina just made a happy gurgle, clad in her white bunny onesie.

Lincoln stared into the ceiling, trying to figure out exactly how this life had come to this. Was it the goggles? The girl's choice to keep their progeny rather than abort Lisa's experiment? The clearest cause was him caving to their demands to become the permanent stay at home parent along with Lisa (who spent most of time in the lab anyway).

But really?

It was that night he didn't remember. Specifically (since there were evidently many such nights), the one where he'd slept with one Sam Sharp, that in turn led to the birth of the smallest of the sibling trio currently bouncing on his bed. But not because Lina was a thing now as opposed to a vision in a nightmare (though he was pretty sure that Lina had had his white hair rather than the pale blonde the real thing sported).

It was because it had soured Luna. Being upset someone slept with your wife was something he understood, even if neither Sam or he had actually been a state to properly think about it. Now Luna, even if she seemed _mostly_ fine was still slightly bitter about it. It wasn't really something that effected their relationship that much, Luna was still his big sister and acted more or less as she did before Lina's birth around him.

But every now and then something would come up to remind him that she was still _pissed_ on some level. Maybe it would be a verbal barb, 'forgetting' to let him know ahead of time that the Loud/Sharp trio would need care that week or in this case…

" _Baby! Baby! Baby! OOOOO!"_

Collaborating with Luan (who apparently blamed him for making her look like a Burpin' Burger addict for half a year) to rig his phone to use that fucking song for everything from his ringtone to alarm. If he got a call, if he wanted to listen to some music, if he set an alarm; _anything_ that used sound that wasn't a call or a video would be that damned song that had been passé when he was _five_.

To make it worse it was apparently hardcoded into the thing now, so unless he could get a new one (utterly impossible with their current budget) or get Lisa to spend some of her precious lab time _un_ fucking whatever Luan had fucked (utterly improbable, since Lisa had made it clear that she didn't care) he was stuck with it. So here he was, his phone's alarm mocking him into wakefulness and three of his children 'dancing' along to the tune of his nightmares.

"Baby!" Lemy laughed and fell on his backside, prompting Lina to giggle.

For as an extra layer to his torment, the siblings three loved the poppy tune from the second they heard it and would not only dance and sing to it to best of their limited abilities, but would hound him for it whenever he was in sight. Conversely the rest of the children rapidly grew sick of the song and would throw a fit if they were in the same room (he could empathise).

Thus it was that he was assigned Lyra, Lemy and Lina as their main caretaker until whenever they finally stopped demanding the brain-numbingly repetitive song, the remaining eleven children in the house would instead by cared for jointly by the five other adults currently in the house (and Lisa if they could get her out of her lab...). He'd protested that he could just leave the phone with someone else, but no one else wanted to deal with the burden of that nonsense.

So here he was; six in the morning and awakened by a combination of bobbing and 'singing' infants and the tune from hell that would inspire them to squeal like demons if taken away. His only consolation; the saved image on the tablet of Luna's face when he'd shown her that her prank had infected her kids with Pop music.

* * *

"Hey Lincoln!" Luan grinned as she spotted the very grumpy man marching down the stairs, trio of Loud Spawn strapped into his now usual smock. Giggling a bit she handed him a hot mug of sweetened coffee. "I heard your theme song on the way down-

"Yes Luan I get the joke about the lyrics," his eye twitched. "If you don't stop laughing I'm adding Lani to your table."

Luan maintained her mirthful expression, but clamped down on the giggles to return to her own table. There, among her sisters Libby gave him a wary look, fearful of the song that might issue from his direction at any moment…

Luckily for her, any demands for the tune of terror were quickly silenced as one Lynn Loud came bounding through the front door, holding it open so that a Lacy Loud could come quickly running in after her.

"Alright kids, that's a minute and thirty-seven seconds for Lacy!" Lynn ruffled Lacy's light brown hair with one hand, "and a…."

She waited a few seconds and Lynn the Third wobbled in on still unsteady legs, lacking her sisters fast developing co-ordination. "Two minutes for Lynn III! Good going for both on you!"

Lincoln resisted urge to sigh in exasperation, "are you sure you should be pushing them at their age Lynn?"

Lynn turned to him with a flat expression, "I know what I'm doing Stincoln, maybe don't tell me how to parent?"

Lincoln winced "I wasn't- I mean…" he breathed through his nose. "I'm sorry, I just-"

Lynn waved him off, "it's fine, just let me- _trust_ me to do this and we'll be good; okay?"

Lincoln give a slight nod. It was a conversation he was reluctantly becoming used to, different people parented differently and with the arrangement they had some kind of clash was inevitable.

It didn't mean that he liked them though.

Lacy however was irrepressible as always; "hi Dada!" She bounced up, visibly sweaty but happy. "I FAST!"

"Your sure are," Lincoln ruffled her hair like her mother had. "I think you might be faster than Mommy was at your age!"

Lacy gasped, and looked up to her mother's slightly conflicted expression with a grin. "REALLY?"

Lynn gave him a quick glare, but spoke through a frozen smile, "maybe…."

Lacy squealed and startling babbling at her mother, while Lincoln quickly scooped up Lynn III. "You want some juice?"

The still breathing a bit hard toddler gave a little nod, and with a quick glance to confirm with Lynn Lincoln took her over to the kitchen table where there were some high chairs open next to Libby. There he plopped her in and moved transferred some increasingly hungry children from his smock to the others, leaving one open so Lacy would be able to be next to her twin. He quickly poured Lynn III some juice from a pitcher into her favourite sippy cup and let the sweaty girl drink as deep as the cup would allow.

With his frame freed from children for a moment, he looked to see that Luan and his father were still feeding the children, then quickly started divesting himself of the child-bearing gear.

He could at least eat breakfast sans equipment,

First came off the weighted backpack, still yet unfilled with assorted supplies. Then the smock with its innumerable adjustable harnesses, but as it came up it started pulling his shirt up with it, exposing his stomach to anyone who was looking.

Which happened to include Lynn, bringing in Lacy for her juice and breakfast who promptly whistled. "Dang Stincoln, when did you start working out!"

Lincoln dropped the smock over the backpack and pushed them both under the table, before turning to her in confusion. "I haven't, what are you on about?"

"Dada swole!" Lacy pointed at him with glee.

Not bothering to ask where Lynn's daughter would have learnt _that_ word he looked to the woman herself for clarification.

"Just pick up your shirt again," she motioned up.

Shrugging, Lincoln did so, exposing his thin but otherwise unimpressive stomach.

"Aww, Dada no swole…" Lacy sadly corrected.

But Lynn's eyes narrowed with suspicion. The angle where his waist went into his stomach was a bit off for someone letting just themselves go… "hey Lincoln, do me a favour and clench your stomach for a moment."

"… Okay?" Lincoln did so, and suddenly his stomach revealed a reasonable set of abs swelling beneath a thin layer of flesh.

"Dada swole again!"

"Yeah okay I get it now," Lynn nodded to herself, dropping the babbling Lacy into the empty high chair. Then moved over to Lincoln who was feeling around his stomach for whatever had caught the girl's attention and tracing the outline of his muscles with surprise.

She suddenly grabbed his arm and felt around for a moment, giving it a squeeze to confirm the density with a nod. She quickly looked around at the kids and came to a conclusion; "say Lincoln, how much would you say that baby-harness thing you're always wearing weighs?"

"Ermm," Lincoln dropped the shirt down as he thought it over. "It depends on how many we have over the day, but I guess… well a lot of pounds at this point since these little guys are always getting bigger."

Lynn nodded and looked over to the now mostly toddler filled table. The smock was adjustable; but it's upper limit was around ten or so kids at this point, coupling that with the counter-weight and the constant carrying and lifting with the kids Lincoln was doing…

"Dang Linc, I think you've been doing a workout regime of your own after all!" She laughed. "All that lifting and sweatin' you've been doing has paid off!"

"I think you might be right," he grinned, clenching his stomach muscles to properly feel them again, for once in his life he wasn't a weed! But… "how come I can't really feel or see anything unless I'm clenching?"

"It's not like you're a body builder so you're not getting movie-star muscles and your body fat covers what's there," Lynn bluntly replied. "Diet is kinda important for this stuff, and you like to snack so no perma-abs for you. You could have more muscle than Ace Savvy and still not see 'em if you don't cut down."

"Dang it," Lincoln sighed, but perked up; "well it's still better than nothing! Now I can show…"

Right. Ronnie still wasn't talking to him.

"Better than nothing sure," Lynn agreed. "But you know what would be better; if you _really_ got into shape! Lucky for you, I'm the expert in getting anyone fit!"

Lincoln considered this for a whole second, "no."

"Let's get- wait what?"

"Yeah no Lynn, I'm pretty sure that I'd be wiped out if I tried one of your regimes _before_ I had to take care of all of these," he pointed at the small army of children. "If I do it now, we're going to need someone taking care of me instead of the other way around."

"It's fine," Lily chirped as she walked into the kitchen. "I can always lend a hand for-"

"I see your point," Lynn backtracked, seeing the obvious results of a helpless Lincoln in Lily's range. "But I'm not gonna go full force on ya, just a little jogging here and there to get the blood pumping and some of that fat off. You'll get a _little_ puffed the first few times, but give it a month and Ronnie'll be begging to touch the goods!"

Lincoln's expression flickered.

"I think that getting out of the house could do you good dear, you spend all your time here now and it's not healthy." Rita admonished as she came in with a freshly changed Lupa. "Some regular cardio isn't going to hurt you anyway."

"Well I mean, I guess it could work…" Lincoln folded. "But who is going to take care of these three? I mean; I don't mind escaping the song but-"

"Luan would be happy to I'm sure," Rita smiled as she plopped Lupa into a high chair, Luan suddenly freezing mid-feeding. "I'm sure her girls would love to spend some time with Auntie Lily as well!"

"Dang, you still haven't gotten that thing off your phone?" Lynn whistled. "Just leave it here, I don't want _any_ of it."

* * *

In hindsight Lincoln might have wanted to stick with the trio and their song anyway. It had less chance of actually killing him than Lynn's 'light' regime.

5 miles of jogging to the nearest park, then some pushups, situps and squats until Lynn got tired (no, not until _he_ got tired, Lynn) and then they could take a rest. Now the tired, very sweaty and wishing for death man could only collapse into the grass while Lynn poured some water over him to try and revive his desiccated form.

"Sorry Lincoln, guess I overdid it," Lynn sheepishly admitted. "I saw the muscles and forgot that you've not really been doing any cardio."

"W-why does that matter?" He wheezed.

" _Because_ your cardio is basically your stamina," Lynn simplified. "There's a lot more to it than that, but jogging and then a good workout isn't the greatest for first timers."

"Good to know…" Lincoln gasped and raised a shaky hand to take the liquid of life from Lynn's hand, before practically drowning himself with it to slake his thirst.

"Well now we both do, I'll take it easier next time-" Lynn focussed off in the distance as something caught her eye, and then grinned down at him. "Hey Linc, you wanna see Ronnie again right?"

The still breathless Lincoln nodded. Lynn pointed to the side, and with a twist of his head he could see a collection of forms at a picnic table, a quick blink to refocus revealed the signature colours of Ronnie Anne Santiago…

And Luna with Sam?

With a still woozy head he collected himself and pushed up to standing to confirm that yes; Ronnie was there in a Royal woods park, his sister and her wife apparently there to just have brunch or something. Unsure as to what to do, Luna apparently spotted him and waved him over.

"Well, Luna's seen us now; no point in dawdling," Lynn shrugged and started marching over. Not wanting to be left standing alone, he trudged behind her with legs heavy from both fatigue and trepidation.

"Mornin' dudes, you getting a workout in?" Luna asked with an oddly smug smile, Ronnie too for some reason…

"Yeah, Linc's been at home a lot for the past year or so I thought he could use a jog." Lynn nodded to the grass stained man. "How come you're out here? I thought the band was on tour for another week."

"Sully and Mazzy are having a tiff," Luna shrugged. "So you know, that means schedule changes and stuff until they sort themselves out."

"And we kinda missed Royal Woods," Sam sighed. "It's good to be home for a bit, we were going to head down later to see the kids and see if we can't… sort some things out ourselves."

Lincoln found his voice and gave Luna a hollow look. "They've been playing that song non-stop. If they grow up liking Pop more than Rock you know whose fault it is."

Luna's smile shook a bit but rallied. "Yeah well they'll probably grow out of it, hey Ronnie you wanna say hi?"

Ronnie looked up at Lincoln with a now uncommon happiness, "hey Linc, nice seein' you around."

Lincoln shifted a bit, suddenly aware that he probably stank and every inch of the thin white shirt that made up the top of his 'workout gear' was covered in sweat and bits of grass. "Hey Ronnie."

"Me and Ronnie Anne met up last night," Luna interjected. "Funny how things lined up."

"Yeah, just popped into Royal Woods for… something and Luna and Sam were there," Ronnie slurped some coffee from a Styrofoam cup. "It had been while, so we just talked for a while and they were _nice_ enough to let me stay at their hotel room since it was getting late."

"You stayed in their room?" Lincoln queried.

Ronnie raised the cup to her lips and drank, looking him in the eyes.

A glance at Luna confirmed her gleeful anticipation. "Yeah bruv, Ronnie and us spent the night. Then we went down here for a bit of breakfast before partin' ways."

It sounded like a date.

Lincoln knew it was a silly conclusion, Ronnie had never shown any lesbian tendencies that he knew of and even if she had an interest in Luna and/or Sam it wasn't really his business anymore. But the smug expressions from the two women struck something in him that made the conclusion ring true.

He glanced at Sam for a moment, and the blonde woman looked away with a guilty shyness.

Damn it.

"… I'm sure you had a lot to talk about." Lincoln said neutrally.

It made sense. Ronnie never made a secret of how she felt about his new family life, so if she wanted to get back at him, sleeping with someone close to him would sure be a way to do it. As for his sister, he 'took' something of Luna's so she 'took' something of his, even if Ronnie wasn't really 'his' anymore. Even if she 'forgave' him or 'didn't blame' him, she probably wanted to get even.

The pieces lined up.

He'd be lying if he said it didn't sting. But he was an adult, so he would at least try to act like one.

"Yeah, you know how things go," Ronnie examined him, apparently looking for something. "You start in one place…"

"End up in another, you'd be surprised where things stop." Luna finished.

"Well I'm sure you three found something to bond over," he stiffly replied. "Anyway, we've got to get going, kids to take care of you know."

Lynn blinked, "we can take a few minutes to-"

"Lisa's been in the lab for too long to be safe," Lincoln countered. "I want to get home soon in case we need to pull her out of something again."

"Dang it, okay you guys have fun I guess," Lynn sighed.

"Oh we will," Ronnie waved away. "We will-"

Ah that moment the wind suddenly picked up, blowing hairs astray and causing Lincoln to shudder as his sweat slicked form turned cold. Frowning he picked at his shirt, seeing that it had stuck to him but he was suddenly distracted from the discomfort by a quiet snickering to his left.

Lynn was giggling at something, a quick look back to the table revealed what.

There Ronnie, Sam and Luna were staring at him. Specifically at his torso, where muscles swollen by a recent workout were outlined by his white and grass stained shirt. It actually looked far more impressive than if he'd simply taken it off, because now every crease and swell was clear; and from the distinct blush on Sam's cheeks and Ronnie's change in breath the ladies certainly appreciated it.

Luna looked between them and him, suddenly not so smug.

"Yeah girls, have fun." Lincoln smiled, letting himself be childish for just a moment before he started jogging back to the house. "Have _lots_ of fun."

Thus it was that Lincoln Loud would find a new motivation to keep up Lynn's training regime. And whenever his muscles screamed for mercy that would never come from Lynn he would bring that moment back to his mind to squeeze out just a bit more.

Everyone likes being appreciated after all.


	16. Family Activities

**Family Activities**

"Hey," Lynn stared for a moment. "Hey Linc?"

"…yeah?" the younger sibling wheezed, half falling over in the kitchen to swallow down some nutritious mix Lynn had prepared (it tasted green).

The momentary respite born from spite of his own having faded to reveal that Lynn's exercises had turned his limbs to jelly. Now it was all that he could do after their second run of the day to not just collapse where he stood while his far fitter sister chugged her green drink like it was water.

"Is it just me or do my kids have handles now?" Lynn pointed to the girls currently playing near the dining table. Sure enough; Lynn's daughters were now clad in red onesies (a gift from Leni, who had made some for each child with a corresponding colour to their Loud mother, or to the preference of the banjo-free partners). Said onesies were warm, comfortable and added a plush softness that meant hugging the child within was even nicer than before (and provided a bit of padding if said hug became too tight due to a carried away adult).

They also came equipped with a layered canvas handle sticking out of the back.

"Oh right;" the man found his senses once more. "Leni added them to all the kids' onesies, that way while they're here we can handle them easier."

Lynn stared at him.

"It was my idea," he admitted. "I'm not apologising."

"Apologise?" Lynn shook her head and grinned. "No, this is _brilliant_!"

"I-it is?" Lincoln raised an eyebrow, surprised that Lynn wasn't ripping him a new orifice for treating their kids like wiggling suitcases. "You're not mad?"

Lynn snorted, "frig no; I've had shifts here too you know!"

"Oh, right." Lincoln recalled various incidents that had happened while Lynn was 'on duty'. He even vaguely remembered having to pull Lulu off of Lynn's face after the little abomination took to becoming a figurative (he hoped) Facehugger. "Then you understand-"

"Why making the tykes easier to hang on to would be a good idea? Yeah trust me; these two?" She thumbed at her twins, currently playing chase around the table. "I nearly put 'em in leashes last week."

"Dang, what did they do?" Some people might have found the idea of restraining their children like animals utterly abhorrent.

Those people had not had to care for Loud children.

"L3 found my chocolate stash-"

"Enough said," Lincoln shuddered at the thought of Loud children finding chocolate again. "So do you want to talk to Leni about getting more onesies for you take home or-"

"Yeah dude," Lynn rapidly nodded. "I'm gettin' one for every day- but that's not what's important right now!" Lynn whistled, causing her twins' head to snap to her. "To me my mini-mes!"

Answering the call, the twins scrambled to their mother on little feet. Lacy stumbled to a stop just before Lynn III skidded to halt.

"Yea?" The bigger of the two queried.

"Okay sports, I can see you've got those nice handles now," Lynn grinned, and as her eyes flashed to Lincoln for a moment his well practiced 'Loud Shenanigans' sense altered him to incoming nonsense. "You wanna turn around let me give 'em a try?"

"Mommy make us fly?" Lacy gasped.

"You betcha!"

"Okay!" Lacy flipped around at the same time as her twin, letting Lynn get a good feel for how sturdy the handles were. As she expected they were solid and well attached, with a padded harness wrapping around the inside of the material so they wouldn't squish any one part of the toddlers body with all their weight.

_Great job Leni!_

"Okay girls, one! Two! THREEE!" She pulled up and suspended her girls in the air at her shoulder height with extended arms, prompting giggles from both twins. She expanded her arms out to her sides and slowly span on the spot, "wheee!"

"Flying!" Lacy laughed and flapped her arms like wings, little Lynn held hers out fixed instead and made what might be propeller noises with her mouth.

Lincoln couldn't help but smile and fished around for his camera to make a movie- but he'd left it with Luan because of The Song. "Lynn can I borrow your phone for a minute? I just want to get this on video."

"In my right pocket," Lynn nodded, and slowed down long enough for Lincoln to find her phone in her right shorts pocket, then span up again while he filmed.

It lasted all in all about five minutes of spinning and noises, with Lynn doing variations, swinging diagonally, then up and down as well. Then she finally started drawing then twins closer together, "oh no, flap faster Lacy'; L3's gonna get ya!"

Alas, Lacy's sudden burst of flaps did nothing to save her from Lynn III's relentless 'engine' and the smaller twin grabbed her sister from behind, prompting their mother to drop onto her butt and draw them into a three way hug into her stomach.

Lincoln couldn't help but smile and opened his mouth to 'aww' only to be cut off by Lynn III desperately wriggling away. "EWW! Mom you STINKY!"

This was true. Lynn Loud had spent most of the morning training in some way, and while she might have applied deodorant anyone who has done a heavy workout knows that nothing short of an actual shower will dispel the smell.

"Ah, sorry kids!" Lynn released her girls and let them run off for a moment, "no wait; Daddy needs you for something!"

"I do?" Lincoln queried in confusion, Lynn suddenly scooped up both girls again- Lynn III wriggling in protest from being close to the pungent parent again- and held them out to Lincoln.

"Yep, grab 'em by the handles!" Lynn grinned. "I've thought of a _new_ exercise."

Lincoln raised an eyebrow but having recovered a bit and knowing better than to argue he put down Lynn's phone and grabbed both daughters by said handles. "Okay; what's the big-"

"Curl 'em." Lynn demanded.

"What?"

"Do a bicep curl with 'em," Lynn pointed at both children. "These little guys weigh about 25 pounds each, which is about what I was gonna have you curl today anyway; now we can make this a family thing."

"Hunh?" Lincoln carefully dropped both girls down to nearly his waist, just before his arms reached full extension then pulled the two up again. "Uff, I think they might be a bit heavier-"

"Nah they're just movin' about." Lynn leaned down to look at birth girls at their level. "You two are wiggly aren't you?"

"Yea!"

"Good," Lynn nodded in approval, before looking up to the surprised Lincoln's face. "Static weights are easier, but more mobile shifting stuff helps build up some control muscles and other stuff that tends to get neglected."

"So this is better?" Lincoln looked at the tots, "I'm not sure about how safe this is though, what if the handles break or something?"

"It'll be fine," Lynn stood up and waved his concerns away. "I'll talk to Leni about reinforcing the stitches when I ask for the new ones, and if you drop 'em you won't need to worry about exercise anymore."

"Okay- wait what?"

" _And_ " Lynn continued. "They're always growing, so you'll be getting a slightly harder work out every day, like Milo of Croton!"

Lincoln stared at her blankly.

"… Like how MidKnight trained as a kid." Lynn course corrected.

"Oh! That's actually pretty cool Lynn!" Lincoln grinned.

Whatever exasperated acknowledgement Lynn might have made was lost as a sudden dreaded song came through the living room into the kitchen.

" _Baby, Baby, Baby OOO!_ "

"Of fu-frig me!" Lynn groaned. "Dang it Luan-"

But it was not Luan who suddenly came stomping through the dining room, Lincoln's own phone in one hand and 'dancing' Lemy in the other. Rather it was a dead eyed Luna, followed by a sour looking Sam trying to keep hold of a similarly wiggling Lina and Lyra in her arms.

"Lincoln." She stared at him. "Come with us."

It was a command, not a request.

Staring at the phone that he had only just escaped from Lincoln indicated to the two children he already had. "Um- I'm kinda busy at the moment-"

Luna turned to the sporty sister; "Lynn, take your kids- we need Lincoln."

Lynn's eyes narrowed. "He's already with mine at the moment, how come-"

"We need to get this song out of their heads." Luna's voice gained a touch of pleading. " _Please_ Lynn!"

Lynn looked at the phone, then back to Lincoln, who subtly shook his head.

Luna's prank had left him dealing with those three as pop-addicts for literal days at this point; she could _deal_ with the nonsense she'd induced.

That and he wasn't feeling too charitable after this morning.

Alas, while Lincoln may have still been salty; Lynn had been dealing with the song herself when she'd taken a shift of her own earlier in the week. She was done with it then, and she was certainly done with it now and no amount of sympathy for Lincoln's plight would make her pass up Luna possibly undoing the mess she'd made, even if it meant Lincoln would probably be used at his expense somehow to try and fix it.

"I can take 'em for a bit," the sporty sister shrugged and plucked her kids from Lincoln's hands, ignoring the look of betrayal from her brother's eyes. "C'mon mini-mes, who wants shower time with Mommy!"

"Nooo!" Lacy protested.

"You stink, not me!" Lynn III complained.

But it was hopeless, the three disappeared up the stairs to leave Lincoln with no excuses. His bitterness was sated a bit though as he spotted the semi-visible form of Lulu (her skin and clothes assuming the colours of their surroundings) on the ceiling as she silently trailed after three. Whatever was going to happen next (probably more face hugging, since Lulu seemed to like the response), it would be both entertaining and Lincoln couldn't be blamed.

"Looks like you're helpin' us bruv," Luna's blunt voice took him from his musings as she tossed him the phone with the damned Song still playing. "C'mon, we're gonna try and cure 'em in the garage!"

"Cure them- oof!" Lincoln grunted as Sam handed him Lina, apparently still having enough sympathy to give him the lighter child if not enough to leave his arms empty.

"There's only one way to fix _shit taste_ ," Luna's eyes bore a new determination. "Ya show the _Philistines_ what the Good Stuff is!"

Lincoln glanced at the garage through the window, and noted some stands set up. "… We're having a private concert?"

"Got it in one," Luna let a smile show through and snapped her fingers. "C'mon bruv; time to face the music!"

* * *


	17. The Truth of Lisa's Nonsense

**The Truth of Lisa's Nonsense**

"Okay kids, you wanna hear Mommies rock out!?" Luna grinned, holding her old but much loved purple guitar, her wife bearing her own blue instrument by her side.

"Yea!" Lemy hopped up with a grin, Lyra next to him nodded with a bob. Lina wiggled in a vaguely approving manner in Lincoln's lap as the man held a teething ring close to her lips, knowing well her habit of chucking the thing when the mood took her, only to cry when it wasn't nearby.

"Well you heard the little man Lunes," Sam gripped her guitar. "One. Two! Three! FOUR!"

The duo cracked out a first of what would be several songs, Sam primarily on the instrumentals while Luna handled the vocals for the rock songs. Then the duo switched over for the more melodic tunes to appeal to Lyra's tastes.

All the while the siblings three bobbed and watched as per their preference, their father behind them to make sure everyone stayed put in their little garage concert.

Meanwhile in what was once again her combined room and laboratory, Lisa Loud observed the six through the now well and truly ancient camera system Luan had once used for comedic video collection. Switching to another monitor she spied Lynn Sr pointedly watching Lily's triplets to make sure they didn't leave their time out, while Rita attempted to clean out whatever had turned Leia's hair purple.

Switching again there was the sight of Lynn screaming in the shower as Lulu engaged her recent hobby of 'tickling' her aunts face, while Lacy and Lynn III watched on in some mix of horror and laughter.

"I was wondering where the screaming was coming from," Lily chirped from behind the scientist, startling her.

"Ahem!" Lisa collected herself as she turned around in her chair. "I see that you have taken up our elder sister's habit of sudden unexpected appearances."

Lily shrugged, "I don't think so, I just wanted to come see you."

"My security was active."

Lily looked at the security apparatus, which normally consisted of a collection of machinery, a steel door and box of electronics connected to the main room entrance. The steel box core containing the electronics normally stood affixed at Lisa's eye level a little to the right of the door, was now clearly open and the once orderly interior bore melted circuits and rewired connections.

"Dang it S-12…" Lisa groaned into her hand.

"Aww, I guess she wanted to play with Auntie Lynn!" Lily gushed. "It's nice that they're getting along so well."

"Indeed," Lisa gave the screen showing Lynn attempting to de-Lulu her face another glance. "I'm not entirely certain our elder sister is quite as enthused however."

"She'll come around," Lily dismissed. "So, what'cha doing?"

Across the years they had known each other (so literally all of Lily's life) Lisa had grown to understand that there little point in trying to shoo the younger girl away. If she somehow succeeded now by conventional means Lily would return twice as annoyingly cheery and persistent as before, and should Lisa employ 'inventive' means to dissuade the youngest sister she would subject to another multi-hour lecture on ethics by her own parental units before being assigned to the troublemaker children for a full week.

So it was with only a little reluctance that Lisa pushed her chair to the side so that Lily could see into the monitor for herself. "I have merely been monitoring the status of some my ongoing projects-"

"The kids?" Lily peeked down. "Aww, how are they doing? Anything _interesting_ going on-"

"I have not confirmed or denied any supernatural presence around your own progeny or Lucy's," The scientist flatly replied. "Please stop asking."

"Well _okay_ …" Lily kicked at nothing, then brightened. "But what about everyone else? I bet they're doing fun stuff!"

Lisa resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and simply indicated to the screen again; Lynn still desperately attempting to remove the abomination from her face with a minimum of skin loss.

"S-12 is currently demonstrating her recently developed proboscis upon Lynn, seemingly both to enjoy her digestive enzymes and to 'play' with Lynn as Luan put it."

"Lynn was complaining about that earlier too," Lily mused. "I wonder why she doesn't do it to anyone else?"

"Lynn's reaction seems to entertain her," Lisa shrugged. "I would also hypothesise that the nutritious mix that Lynn employs after her workouts may be ideal for S-12's growth needs- but regardless it does indicate that her more 'interesting' features are presenting largely as according to my expectations, if not entirely in the manner that they would."

Lisa clicked over, swapping the screen bearing the 'playtime' between Lulu Loud and her aunt for a few smaller ones displaying other occupied rooms in the house.

"Luan is currently attempting to entertain her quintuplets, with moderate success." True to Lisa's word, Luan Loud was standing before her assorted spawn in what had once been her and Luna's room. The Comedienne was wearing one of her silly moustaches she'd dug out from the garage as well as a freshly restored Mr Coconuts while her five giggled at her. "The five are progressing largely as expected of the unaltered specimins-"

"Wait!" Lily's brows came together in confusion. "I thought Luan's were all-"

"Modified?" Lisa quired, Lily nodded. "No, Luan's progeny are part of the Loud control group, I can only attribute their exceptional quantity to our natural familial fertility. Likewise for your own triplets- please stop making that expression."

Lily blinked, then sheepishly wiped the drool off her face. "Sorry Leese, I was just… _remembering labour-_ "

"If I had realised how my serum would interact with your pre-existing tendencies I would have reconsidered introducing it." Lisa shook her head. "Regardless, so long as you don't attempt to rape-"

"I apologised!" The blonde girl squeaked. "And I was still coming down off the-"

"Your excuses have been heard and dismissed," Lisa admonished with narrowed eyes. "And that is all I will say on the matter."

"Hmm," Lily thought. "Well, I'm kind of curious about the others so…"

"Your own progeny are in time out as overseen by our Paternal Unit," Lisa summarised. "All three of which are unaltered and progressing…. Admittedly unusually, but I have no further data to hypothesis from at this time so I will not waste time with wild speculation-"

Lily grinned, "Lucy said they could be magi-"

"Nonsense _aside_ ," Lisa glared at her interruption-prone sister. "Of the current subjects assigned to the household; Lynn's progeny are currently observing her interactions with S-12. Leia and her sister are currently being decontaminated by our Maternal Unit, and the Loud/Sharp siblings are currently suffering a 'deprogramming' attempt after Luna and Luan's latest 'prank' resulted in a Pop-music addiction in all three of their progeny."

"Is it working?"

Lisa flicked over to garage camera.

"Want BABY!" Lyra protested.

"BABY BOO!" Lemy agreed.

"Evidently it will require a more persistent approach," Lisa clicked off that particular camera.

Lily looked over each windowed box with awe, "wow… so you just keep an eye on everyone up here?"

"'Up here'? don't be ridiculous," Lisa sniffed, before typing in something into her keyboard. Instantly a series of menus popped up, most of which were spreadsheet documents and other things Lily would probably need Lisa to decipher anyway. Shooting the older girl a questioning look, the slightly smug scientist indicated to one of the menu's that read 'live observation'.

Following her lead, Lily grabbed Lisa's old fashioned mouse and clicked upon it; opening a new window with the audio enabled.

"You're gonna be _so_ popular when you grow up!" Leni giggled on the screen, a 'live feed' sign in the bottom right of the window. In her lap a seafoam-green-onesie-clad Lyle Loud sat with a happy expression as his mother brushed his hair.

"Just you wait- I bet that _all_ the guys and girls will love you and your silky smooth hair!"

Lily clicked off the live feed and read through the rest of the 'live observation' tabs, and realised they all listed the current addresses of every Loud sibling- as well at least a few of those of the mothers of Lincoln's other children. If she had to guess from the sheer number…

"As you can see," Lisa informed. "I 'keep an eye' on _all_ of the subjects' development, not just those currently residing within this household.

Lily whistled, "wow, but why though? I mean- it's kind of creepy but you usually have a reason so…"

The scientist clicked over and this time revealed a spreadsheet listing various progeny by subject number, special/normal status, mother and personal name. Additionally were little tabs that revealed any new developments and interesting notes. "Each of the subjects are part of my running experiment-"

Lily titled her head in confusion, "I didn't think that anyone let you do that on them?"

"They aren't aware of this one," Lisa pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "I trust that you can keep a secret?"

Lily leaned down conspiratorially and smiled at her. "You wanna show off to me don't you?"

"… A not inaccurate-"

"Yes!" Lily jumped up, "of course you can; share! Share! Share!"

"Very well," Lisa cleared her throat. "While I have been forbidden from more overt experimentation, my initial goal was never to simply gain subjects for my shorter term projects. Instead; I had a number of lesser hypothesis alongside one main one that could only be satisfied by…"

"Knocking us all up with Linky's jizz?" Lily queried.

"… Essentially yes," Lisa sighed. "Upon observing our siblings and our combined remarkable pool of diverse talents, I was struck by how unfortunate it was that such a group's genetic materials could not be combined without eventually inducing probable defects and torment upon some of the resulting progeny.

But!" Lisa raised a finger; "I quickly reconsidered, because that was under traditional thought and a true futurist is not constrained by such things. Rather consider myself; the resident genius capable of overcoming any problem with sufficient resources, the 'Lisa Ex Machina' if you will- ARGHH!"

"Sorry," Lily put the squirt bottle back into her dress pocket. "Lori said we have to spray you if you start calling yourself that again."

"Dang- backwate-" Lisa spluttered. "Fine, my point was that I could theoretically remove any defects from a developing embryo as they arise- furthermore I could almost certainly prevent them from occurring in the first place if I used a device to select and alter sperm cells before they were used in conception.

It upon this line of thought that it occurred to me that if I were to already be altering sperm cells for this purpose, there was also no reason that the same method could not be used to _enhance_ them!"

"Ooh!" Lily looked over the spreadsheet, "is that what the 'specials' are? Enhanced?"

"Precisely," Lisa confirmed. "Though in some cases, heavier alterations were employed to test other theories-"

"THIS ISN'T FUNNY!" Lynn's sour scream came through the thin walls.

"Usually not to S-12's extent though." Lisa pointedly turned her chair away from Lynn's voice. "I came to the conclusion that a device for such purposes was easily viable given my capabilities, furthermore our family provided a diverse set of remarkable genes and a multitude of candidates for incubation. Meanwhile our elder brother has a remarkably healthy base set of genetics to serve as a known constant for 'material', and could even said to be above average in many fields despite lacking the sheer ability we have in a select few.

I considered the implications if I could somehow realise the idea; The most pressing issue with incest is that it results in genetically based deformities. If that is resolved via gene tinkering then all of the progeny who are 'treated' will likely have no defects in them, but 'normal' people would. Therefore the primary concern with incest would logically now reversed, as outbreeding would be less ethical to the potential child's development than inbreeding with a genetically 'perfect' relative.

Furthermore the concentration of 'talents' in one gene pool would make them exponentially more likely to appear and progress with further generations as seen with standard 'line breeding'. But far, _far_ , more effectively with the assistance of gene selection…"

Lisa stood and stared into Lily's eyes, brining a twinge of unease to the younger woman's stomach. "But why stop there? Just how _far_ could I push the gene therapy? What is the limit of humanity under these circumstances!?"

"Lulu…" Lily breathred. "That's why-"

"Yes!" Lisa gleefully exclaimed. "Lulu is the prime example of that section of the experiment!" The smile dipped a bit, and the scientist suddenly started pacing. "But no scientist worth their salt simply conducts an experiment without a control group, and there were already at least two broad experiments I wished to run with Lulu-esque 'superhumans' and gene-selected Louds. So _many_ subjects would be needed for all groups….

And I needed a delivery method that would endear me to the mothers regardless. I needed _something_ that could appeal to any woman who had even the slightest maternal inclination that might lead her to keep an unplanned child to make themselves open to my proposal-"

"You mean to trick them right?" Lily corrected her, "I mean; _I_ wouldn't have minded but-"

"Your point is noted," Lisa dryly replied. "Regardless; it was for that purpose that the goggles were made- a delivery method that incorporated the same sperm-modifying device for a direct injection!"

"Hmm, you know I think you're just waaaay into incest and don't want to admit it," Lily concluded. "But yeah; I'm not telling the others that- they'd be pretty mad!"

"Indeed," Lisa looked to her. "But I can assure you that it has all worked out well, and imagine if the second generation were subject to the same conditions-"

"They might actually lynch you if you get the kids involved," Lily warned, only for her warning to fall on deaf ears.

"Or a third!?" Lisa eagerly expelled. "What would happen if they interbred with the normal population? Would the 'corrected' genes remain so? What effect would upbringing in differing environments have?

So many questions to be pursued over _decades_ and I would be able to witness and intervene in the grand project that was their lives at any point!

A complete reversal of societal normality, a possible new hyper talented sub-section of humanity and a true new human species with more advanced abilities! All of these things could be achieved!"

"Hmm," Lily thumbed the bottle in her dress pocket. "You're sounding a bit… you know-"

Lisa expression suddenly lost every ounce of enthusiasm and her eyes bored into the blonde girl.

"If you compare me to a Nazi as Lynn has then I will kick you out this instant."

Lily floundered, "oh, I-"

"NSDAP's vile ideology has been given a _mountain_ of undue credit for scientific breakthroughs and achievements in pop culture," Lisa snapped. "But any true scientist, no; _anyone_ who bothers to research their 'methodology' would know that they were complete garbage that embraced pseudoscience and politics over actual science, humanity, sensibility and sanity. Glazial-Kosmogonie _alone_ …."

Lily backed off as the scientist devolved into a rant and carefully closed the lab door lest the salty sister notice her escape. Downstairs the kitchen door opened to allow Lincoln, Luna, Sam and their 'singing' kids into the house trailing behind them.

Already tired and near broken by Lynn's pyshcial torment, the exhausted man flopped into a chair and looked at the ceiling as the children milled around the table.

"Baby! Baby!" Lemy cheered.

"C'mon dudes," Luna moaned. "You liked the rock right?"

"Yea, but wan baby boo!" Lemy cheered.

"We already played it little man," Sam sighed. "A lot."

The professional musicians had been forced to play, and sing the inane song about halfway through their performance as the siblings got cranky. Not wanting to loose their attention, they had started alternating between genres of Pop and actual music in the hopes of keeping their eyes on them.

It had had mixed results.

"No, want melody!" Lyra complained, glaring at Lemy.

"Really!?" Luna instantly brightened.

"Yea!" Lyra nodded.

"But baby after?" Lemy asked with big eyes.

"Yea…" Lyra nodded firmly.

"… Just take it as a win Lunes; we're all wiped." Sam sighed, and plopped down next to Lincoln, taking a sleepy Lina from his arms.

"You know what; yeah, I'm done for the day." Luna gave in and grabbed Lincoln's phone to start The Demon Song (ignoring the wincing from Sam and Lincoln) before handing it to Lyra. "Go play in the living room okay, Mommies and Daddy need to rest."

"Okay!" Lemy gleefully snatched the phone from Lyra, prompting a possibly friendly game of chase as they ran out of the room.

"… I hope they break it." Lincoln drawled. "Seriously; I don't even have anyone who can't call me through the house phone anyway, I can just get a watch or something to tell time."

"I hear you," Luna joined her wife and brother at the table, staring into the ceiling.

But as she did, she noticed something was slightly off.

"Hey Linc?"

"… Yeah?"

"Can Lulu do chameleon stuff?"

"Yes, but I've only seen her doing it before she…" Lincoln blinked, and refocussed on the spot that Luna was pointing to. There was one Lulu Loud alright, opened up 'happy face' vaguely outlined against the ceiling with an elongated proboscis ready to slide down an esophagus and drink directly from a stomach. "Oh _no_."

Lisa would later point to the following minutes as to when she was able to confirm that Lulu did indeed enjoy Lynn's favourite sports drink, but only when mixed with digestive juices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, Lisa's actions are very silly and her intentions to make her little superhumans is more than a little creepy, but it came out of a thought experiment about what the consequences of Lisa's gene tinkering with the Sin Kids would be. Logically, incest is still gross but technically healthier than outbreeding if Lisa has really 'fixed' the genes of everyone in the family.
> 
> And if she can mess with their genes like that, she would want to mess with them to the absolute limit of her abilities just to see how far she could push it. And any good scientist knows you need a control group…
> 
> The snowballing 'need' for subjects in that thought experiment fit the general modus operandi of LLFM!Lisa, so I expanded upon the stated motive from the original fic as this.
> 
> Honestly this chapter is mostly just a chunk of exposition from the original thought experiment, but I hope that you still got a giggle or two from the Lulu antics at least :) As always, please let me know if you find any overt spelling errors or other such mistakes.


	18. Pulling apart, Coming together

**Pulling apart, Coming together**

"One! Two! THREE!" Luna grunted as she pulled, hands gripping the disturbingly strong abomination with all the strength they could muster.

"It's working, I can see the- _oh god that's nasty_!" Sam grimaced as she witnessed the pale, dripping appendance coming out of her brother-in-law's throat.

"Shut up luv and keep pullin'!" Luna couldn't help but snap back.

The two were currently attempting to extract their niece from Lincoln, the little crime of science having decided to attach herself to his face and for whatever reason shove some kind of tongue thing inside him like a movie monster. It wasn't what Luna had _expected_ after a session of pop-exorcism- but in the Loud House it wasn't really that _surprising_.

"I'm pulling as hard as I can!"

"Mllbbrggll!" Lincoln bemoaned his fate as his vision started to go dark, the fleshy tube from Lulu now pulling at a direction that cut his air supply. He'd been able to breathe moments before, but the efforts of his 'rescuers' had changed that and now all he could do was silently guess what his epitaph would be;

'Here lies Lincoln Loud;

Failed artist

Father of far, far too many

Died Frenching his two year old'

Fortunately for what remained of Lincoln's post-parent dignity Lily was descending the stairs, having narrowly escaped Lisa's rant to now witness his predicament. The cheerful girl giggled at the sight of the silly adults being bested by the child of Lisa's mind, but stopped when she saw Lincoln's face turn purple.

Quickly, she rushed over and ducked under Luna's arms- "Lily thank fuck- grab 'er and pull-"

"Just stop you silly- urggh!" The blonde shook her head and reached under Lulu's armpits, and began tickling the tot. Within moments the abomination's belly started trembling and a wheezing laugh emitted from her strange mouth, and a second later Lincoln fell to the floor as the proboscis disconnected with a SHLROP, whipping around as it was sucked back into her rapidly reforming face.

"He! he! he!" Lulu giggled, emitting a rarely human sound before Luna shoved one of the emergency pacifiers from a kitchen drawer filled with them into her mouth.

"God damn it- Linc you still with us!?" Luna left Lulu in Sam's arms to inspect her brother. The white haired man was wheezing on the floor, but his face was rapidly lightening to his usual complexion and he raised a shaky thumbs up. "Okay good- I'm gonna go have to talk with Einstein…"

Lincoln let her drone on for a moment as his sore throat demanded his attention. There was a very good reason that sedation was used for endoscopies, having something like that put down your throat to poke around your stomach was _very_ uncomfortable and more than a little painful. He was also pretty sure Lulu's 'tongue' was thicker than most cameras used for that kind of thing too, and for some reason he suddenly felt like he hadn't eaten breakfast-

"NO! SHE WITH ME!" His thoughts were suddenly cut off by a high pitched squeal, and his instincts propelled him before his comprehension. In a second he wasn't on the ground in the kitchen anymore, but standing in the dining room alongside his sister and her Lulu-bearing wife to find-

Lemy and Lyra using Lina as tug-of-war rope by each of her hands, much to the youngest's displeasure.

"Excuse me?" His mind span wheels as his spiked adrenaline faded and he was suddenly aware of just how much torment Lynn's workout had given him all over again.

"Kids what the fu-frig!" Luna gasped, marching forwards to pointedly pluck the wet-eyed infant from the two siblings, prompting both to fall back onto their butts. "You don't pull people like that!"

"But you do!" Lyra protested.

"When?" Luna growled, not feeling charitable to her eldest (by a minute but still) child.

"When here!" Lyra pointed at Lincoln and Lina. "With everyone!"

"… Okay but that doesn't mean you should do it to Lina," Luna deflated. A glance back revealed an unimpressed looking Sam shooting her the 'bad influence' look again. Returning to the kids she'd popped out personally she knelt down closer to their level. "Why were you two even pulling her like that?"

Lyra pointed at the TV "my music on there!" And sure enough, the TV happened to be playing melodic rock from one of Luna's rivals.

Lemy piped up, "baby here!" He raised Lincoln's phone, and The Song emitted again, causing all adults within range to wince and Lulu's ears to surreptitiously suck in.

"I go there, Lemy stay here," Lyra bobbed to make her point. "Lina come play with me!"

"No, Lina play here with me!" Lemy glared at his sister.

"She play with me!"

"No with me!"

"I'm better!"

"You meaner!"

"You FATTER!"

And like that, the two were a ball of destruction again; Lemy charged into Lyra and they fell over as one, quickly rolling away in a mix of slightly differently toned browns from their hair and identical purple from their onesies.

Luna sighed and looked to her brother for assistance, nodding the tired man stepped forward to block the path of the twin ball. The moment the two bumped into his shin he lanced forward and grabbed them, pulling them apart with their clothes' handles even as they grabbed for each other.

"Oi!" The two froze at the unusually harsh tone of their mother, and they looked at her with guiltily faces. They found no sympathy in her expression, and instead she rather pointedly indicated to the smaller child held in her arm; "look at Lina!"

Lina was clearly teary eyed, and as the twins looked upon their younger sibling, Lina's eyes met theirs for only a moment before she stuffed her face into Luna's chest and sniffled.

Instantly the fight was gone from the two and tears formed in Lemy's eyes. "WE SORRY!"

"I didn't mean it!" Lyra sadly declared.

Luna stared down, unmoved by their sudden remorse. "Well you still did it. Both you, so both of you are going in time out-"

"But!"

"Apart," Luna empathised.

The two gaped, and looked to Sam for mercy. But the normally softer parent was having none of it today. "Sorry kids, but you _don't_ hurt each other."

Lyra looked up to her father and wilted before the disappointed expression he bore.

Ignoring the two's sorry states Lincoln marched to the designated 'time out' corner in the dining room. It was the frontmost right corner relative to the front door and bare of any toys or interesting patterns; this was where he plopped Lyra, face first to the wall.

Wordlessly he continued onto the next barest corner, the back right one of the dining room. It was closer to the kitchen, so slightly more distracting than the utterly boring one Lyra was in but no one was making anything right now so Lincoln didn't feel like he was favouring one child over the other. Lemy looked up him as Lincoln sat him down.

"I really sorry Dad."

Lincoln's heart melted at his sad face- but he held himself firm. "I know son, but you need to think about how you hurt your sister."

He gently pushed his little son's head to face the bare wall again.

"You're there for ten minutes," Luna called out. "And we'll double it if we see you try and talk to each other!"

Lincoln swallowed his guilt as he heard sniffles from behind him, but contrary to her voice Luna's face was mostly just sad. He reached over and patted her shoulder as he reached her, "hardest part of being a parent Luna."

"Don't I know it," she muttered, but squeezed the hand in thanks, then found herself accepting a one armed hug from her wife. "Thanks babe."

The moment was oddly satisfying in a cathartic way. Between the tensions since Luna's, and then Sam's pregnancies were revealed and the simple lack of one-on-one time that came with their differing lifestyles neither of the siblings had been really able to simply sit down and share something… deeper. Just for a few seconds the conflict with Ronnie, the frustration with Lina's parentage and even the silent marring that the twins conception had born fell away.

For the first time in years the two connected in simple companionship, Sam a known friend in a familiar place.

"Dang what happened here!?" Lynn whistled, promptly popping that moment with her usual grace as she marched down the stairs.

"Lynn!" Lily hissed, surprising Lincoln with a jolt; he'd actually forgotten she was still there. "They were having a moment!"

"Well we're not anymore," Luna sighed. "My kids played up, now they're in time out."

"How come Lincoln looks like…" Lynn hopped over and leaned closed to the tired man's face. "Lulu got you too?"

Lincoln just nodded, feeling every scratch on his skin and more inside.

"Yeah, she's not gentle," Lynn gave a flat glare to the toddler in question. "You keep pullin' that and were gonna get you a muzzle you hear me Lovecraft?"

Lulu gave a gurgle that could have been interpreted in a variety of ways.

"… I'm getting one just in case," Lynn declared with narrowed eyes.

"Can't say I blame ya," Luna shrugged. "You wanna take her to Leese before she goes movie-monster on someone else?"

"I'll do it," Lincoln volunteered, feeling every bit as sticky and smelly as the previous few hours would have suggested. "I still need to get a shower anyway."

"Can't argue with that neither," Luna eyed the dark patches under his arms. "Sam, you wanna…"

"Oh, right." The blonde woman pushed the abomination into Lincoln's waiting arms- but drew the toddler back as Lincoln fell under her weight.

"Ooff!" The man stumbled. "She's heavy!"

"No, she's fine." Sam raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yes I'm…" the man let out a breath, suddenly aware of all his pains and aches. "Actually now that you mention it… I was kind of wiped before the Jam Session from Lynn's workout, then there was Lulu's thing and now…"

"Dada!" Lynn's twins raced down the stairs, freshly cleaned and dressed and barrelling into Lincoln's shins, Lynn III twin only a few steps behind Lacy. "We go play- eww you stink!"

"Kids!" Lynn admonished. "You're meant to still be in the bath- Lacy I can _see_ the dirt behind your ears!"

"You don't have to finish yours…" Lynn III muttered, quickly darting behind her twin upon her mother's glare.

"I _did_ finish mine," Lynn corrected. "I just needed a quick rinse since I went for a run, _you_ guys haven't had one since Monday so get back in there and- wait a minute I didn't bring in the new- are those the same clothes you were wearing already?"

Lynn III's poker face was remarkable for her age but Lacy's guilty expression damned them both.

"Dang it girls!" Lynn graoned.

"It's fine, I'll make sure they finish theirs and take mine after," Lincoln assured her.

"You're all tired Linky," Lily chirped. "Why don't I help-"

"Yeah no," Luna pointedly pushed Lily back with her free hand. "Okay; Lulu needs to be taken to Leese before she tongues someone to death, and someone _else_ needs to be on spawn watch. Mom and Pops are off somewhere with the rest-"

"I think they might have needed to go to the store," Lily interjected. "Leia's hair got dyed with something strong-"

"We can deal with Lola's fit later." Luna tossed the problem to future Luna. "Lily was _supposed_ to be helpin' Mom and Pops anyway, so she can take that job-"

"Dang it…"

"Quit your whingin', mine are just in time out for another…" Luna looked back, and spotted Lyra quickly turning back to the wall from where she'd been staring. " _Ten_ minutes for Lyra, since she's meant to be looking at the wall-"

Lemy snickered, and Luna shook her head in resignation.

"And the same for Lemy, since he thinks that's funny."

The boy slumped over and Lyra's shoulders shook, clearly holding in giggles she was smart enough to repress.

"But yeah; easy stuff since there's only two of 'em anyway. Lynn and Sam can take Lina on their own since they've been actually doin' stuff all mornin' until Lynn's twins come down- I dunno you two can get coffee or somethin' in the meantime. I'll take up Lulu and some clean clothes for Lynn's kids and bring 'em down when they're clean so Lincoln can just hop in the shower. Any objections?"

"None here," Lynn nodded.

"I'm cool with it." Sam agreed.

"I just want to get clean," the sweaty Lincoln sighed.

"Are you sure-"

"Okay let's get this done then," Luna pointedly ignored Lily's objections as she swapped Loud Spawn with her wife, then marched over to the laundry. Lincoln nudged Lacy and Lynn, too tired to carry them and the two reluctantly followed him up the stairs.

Lily sighed and sat at the dining table, staring at Luna's progeny while Lynn and Sam went back to the kitchen to take up Luna's suggestion. Lynn quickly made four acceptable quality cups of coffee, and took two to the table Sam was sitting at with her still shaken daughter.

"Thanks!" Sam sipped at the coffee with one hand, uncaring of the taste but sorely in need of the bitter awakening it promised. "So… I know we've never really talked all that much."

Lynn shrugged as she sat down, "it's fine, different tracks of life and all that."

Sam nodded, "yeah, I don't talk to my brother's wife much either and I've only got one sister-in-law to keep track of. I can't imagine what having all of yours is like."

"It's managed chaos mostly," Lynn remarked. "Like everythin' else about this family, you just keep track of yourself and react to what comes your way. The other guys' romance stuff is their business mostly… but I do wanna know something."

Sam looked up in interest.

Lynn leaned back a bit, slightly uncomfortable. "You don't have to answer this if you don't want; but what's all this stuff going on with you three? Even since we heard about Lina, Luna's been crabby with Linc." Lynn hurried upon seeing Sam's expression shift, "I mean; I get that she could be mad since he slept with you, but you guys already had an open relationship right? And Luna mentioned you still wanted kids so…"

"It's not that simple," Sam stared into the coffee, her signature blue streak barely visible in the surface. "It's not just fu-sleeping with anyone we want- you get sick like that anyway, but we always talked about who we were comfortable with the other sleeping with. We talked about this _a lot_ ; no one we might catch feelings for, no one the other thinks is sketchy. A lot of times it's just 'no' and that's it.

The point is, it isn't what a lot of people think of when they imagine an 'open marriage'." Sam sipped the coffee. "We have rules, and two _big_ rules so we don't hurt each other by accident cause sex is good for that. The first one is that we're not going for a three way marriage- sex is fine, but the only ones for _more_ than that is each other, no ifs or buts. If we start feeling something like that, we just cut it off there and then."

"Makes sense," Lynn nodded. "But I don't think you're in love with Lincoln, so it's the second one that's the rub right?"

Sam laughed for a second, "yeah… yeah it is. Don't get me wrong; Lincoln's a great guy and from what I remember, Drunk Sam had a _great_ time- but I don't feel that way about him. And that great time?

It broke that second rule in half and it _seriously_ hurt Luna, drunk or not." Sam's fingers tightened. "That rule is that family is off limits, _period_."

Lynn took a moment to mull it over, swallowing some coffee to buy time. It was easy to understand now; Luna had had crushes back then, but Sam was her first and only serious relationship. Lynn had assumed that maybe because of how they 'operated' that their marriage might have been more casual than the monogamous ones that her sisters preferred.

But it _was_ monogamous in its own way, and planned or not…

"You went back on your vows," Lynn winced as she realised she'd thought aloud. "Sorry- I was just-"

"It's fine," Sam's tight expression spoke otherwise. "It's the truth. Bottom line; Drunk Sam always knew better than to go break any of the rules we followed before then. I just _wanted_ what-"

She sighed and looked to the child she'd won. "You know she loves her? Really properly loves her right?"

"Lina?" Lynn nodded. "Yeah, she's always saying 'our kids' and talks about her like she popped her out herself. You're the same with her two right?"

"Yeah, bonding easy at this age anyway," there was a brief flash of warmth, but then Sam looked to Lynn with utter seriousness.

"Her hair was white when she first came out."

Lynn winced. "I didn't know, I heard that blondes can go dark but all of us came out our shades already."

"No one else could make it." Sam's lips trembled. "We were far out, not expecting her for another two weeks. I was off stage of course at that point, but music's our life so I wanted to still see everything. Maz'n Sully were off on some solo adventure and we just wanted to cruise through the interstate for a bit in the bus- somewhere we could be sure the media or our friggin' manager wouldn't follow us for a bit and we could just chill for a few days before going to the hospital.

But Lina was already impatient," Sam gave a shuddering sigh. "She decided to come early;

So there we were. Middle of nowhere, only Lunes and a few roadies that sure as shit weren't ready for this- but neither were we so I guess we were all on the same playing field. The odd thing was; everything went fine, six hours of misery for me of course since we didn't have Lisa's special sauce on hand, but otherwise fine.

Luna was the one who took her out of me, because w-we're meant to take care of each other," a tear ran down her cheek, dripping off to stain Lina's white clothes. "And she just held her, first pair of arms- _hands_ 'cause she was small- that ever held her up. And she friggin' cried her eyes out, just seeing t-that white hair- i-it wasn't the kind you could pretend was happy either a-and…" She sniffed and cleared her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Hey," Lynn looked around, and Lily was gone from the other room; it occurred to her that she'd probably taken Lemy and Lyra to somewhere they couldn't overhear. "You don't have to-"

"it's fine," her voice was thick. "She tried so hard in the first few weeks but I could tell she was making herself do it. She saw _him_ whenever she looked at her, I could tell. And I knew she couldn't feel the same way about me as she did before-"

Lynn was floundering, "I'm sure-"

"She admitted it."

Lynn winced. There wasn't anything the romance-averse Jock could say to that. Heck; Leni would probably need a good minute for it.

But Sam suddenly calmed. "It was when I made her sit down and talk about a month after Lina came out, and it hurt to hear but… but she still wanted to try. She still loved me, she _still_ loves me. And she wanted to love Lina too, even if she couldn't right then.

And she did, it wasn't too long before her hair changed to be more like mine and things got easier after that." Sam smiled and drew up her sleeping baby. Short, light blonde hair and closed blue eyes. "She still has _his_ eyes, but Lunes is mostly over it now."

Sam's eyes turned back to Lynn. "She's not an angel, but Luna's trying to get through this as best she can. She knows Lincoln and me didn't mean to hurt her, but she's still gotta work through the pain you know?"

Lynn slumped back, "dang… you know most of this relationship stuff is _waay_ over my head right? I mean; I thought some of the others might've gone through something like that but jeeze…"

Sam gave a weak laugh. "It's fine, I know it's a lot to take in."

"No kidding…" Lynn swallowed the remainder of her coffee and quickly thought of a diversion to something less serious. "Ah… so. How come you came up with rule two anyway?"

Sam snorted, "after all that and that's what you ask?"

"If it's-"

"No its fine," Sam laughed. "It was basically right after we started dating. I would come over to this house for something and… it was liking walking into heaven- all of you girls are _amazing_ you know that? There's not even an average one among you and you were all just there, bouncing around in casual clothes- every personality and body type a growing girl could want to…. you know…"

"I can guess." Lynn smirked.

"I'd hope so at this point, but the thing was; it wasn't heaven; it was hell because I could look all I wanted, but I couldn't _touch_. It was like putting a meal in front of a starving man, but he's been tied up so all he can do is drool…"

"… And Luna noticed?"

"Oh yeah, she _noticed_." The woman reminisced. "She was _not_ happy with me- but she also kind of understood since she wasn't blind. So we came up with our rules and- with a hiccup or two here and there- they've more or less stayed the same since."

Lynn nodded, looking back she was pretty sure there were a few times she'd caught Sam looking at her back then. But Middle-School Lynn didn't really put it together, in hindsight though?

Pretty freakin' obvious.

And it was pretty petty but… "Hey, you're gay right?"

Sam gave her a flat look, then looked down to Lina. "I don't know, I mean I thought I was considering everything we just talked about but maybe I should go check with my _wife_ -"

"But you like boys too so- bisexual then?"

Sam closed her eyes. "Yes. I like both sets. I'm glad that we've covered this _after_ my stories."

"Well… how am I?" Lynn grinned.

"How are you?" Sam raised an eyebrow.

"How do I rate on the hotness scale now?" Lynn grinned. "I mean, there's some girls on the team that swing that way but they're all my buddies so they'd lie for me and guys'll say anything to get in your pants so-"

"We just covered why this is a terrible idea." Sam flatly replied.

Lynn shrugged, "but you're allowed to look right? I know you've checked out Leni since then so-"

"Yes, yes I am. Luna lets me do it if I'm not too bad about it." Sam sighed with closed eyes. "But I'm a lot calmer now, so I try not to-"

"But I _want_ you to," Lynn insisted, jumping up so that she was standing in the middle of the kitchen. "C'mon, I wanna know how modern Lynn compares to mini-Lynn!"

Sam stifled another laugh; the younger woman was practically the same size as her younger self, and it was with that good humour that she acquiesced. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure!" Lynn flexed, letting every crafted muscle stand out and thrusting out her (slightly expanded after pregnancy) chest. "Gimmie it straight doc!"

Sam inhaled through her nose, and a little grin came across her face. Her normally calm expression gained a new edge as her tongue poked a through a little at the side of her mouth. In an instant Sam Sharp went from being a normal woman to an intimidating, openly predatory huntress and Lynn Loud suddenly felt like a fresh piece of meat before a _starving_ pack of wolves.

It only lasted for a moment, and Sam took her eyes from Lynn's form as her demeanour shifted back to normal, giving Lynn a wink. "I'd _definitely_ buy you a drink; if I _wasn't_ with your sister."

"Glad to hear it." The two women froze as Luna's voice came from the stairs, Sam's eyes moved on their own to spy Luna 'smiling' from the bottommost stair with stiffened lips. "Let's make sure it _stays_ like that."


	19. Self Discovery

**Self Discovery**

"Ahhh," Lincoln sighed in relief as the hot water ran over his body. Years ago any steam had been a violently contested commodity between the siblings, but thanks to the necessary renovations that allowed the house to function as the practical day-care for so many children; hot water was now a common pleasure that Lincoln's inner steam-deprived-eleven-year-old relished.

Of course, finding the time for a _long_ hot one was another matter entirely, but between his sore muscles (and _oesophagus_ ) and the girls currently watching the kids; he felt like staying in for a minute or ten was warranted. Plus he'd scrubbed Lacy and L3 clean before hopping in, so he felt like he'd earned it anyway.

Thus it was that the tired, thoroughly sore both inside _and_ out man was able to find a moment's peace and luxuriate in one of the simple pleasures of life. He could do anything he wanted in here and not be bothered by salty sisters or persistent progeny.

Well _almost_ anything he wanted; he knew better than to hope to get away with some 'self indulgence' while Lisa was still on whatever bend that had resulted in the next generation coming so soon. He wasn't sure why she wanted to use _his_ baby juice over any other man's, but until she stopped there was no way he could indulge himself in the house.

Which was a shame, since a grown man has _needs_ and since Ronnie had stopped coming over properly he was feeling them quite a bit keenly now.

Oh well; from what he'd been told, his bits had been given all the workout they would ever need anyway.

And was with that bitter resignation towards probable lifelong abstinence that he reached to turn up the heat, hoping to enjoy the respite a little longer before the fray demanded-

**BANG**

His presence again.

* * *

"… Lisa?" He dryly asked.

"Who else?" Lynn was visibly dusty, her recent shower ruined already.

The dining room was covered in plaster dust. A quick look upwards revealed a thick, jagged crack leading to Lisa's room/lab through the ceiling. Lisa herself stood in the kitchen, alongside Sam (still holding Lina), Luna and Lynn; but the scientist merely looked a bit sooty as opposed to dusty, while Lynn's twins and Lulu huddled behind the adults still as clean as before.

"So… what exactly- wait" there were some kids unaccounted for-" where are Lemy and Lyra?"

"Are out with Lily," Luna interrupted his train of thought, looking slightly frazzled herself. "She took 'em out for ice-cream because of… stuff earlier, so they weren't anywhere near when the ceiling came down."

"What happened?" He shook his head.

"Leese got distracted for some reason, so one of her experiments went bang," Lynn started dusting herself off. "But it looks like this old house finally had enough and the floor gave in- kinda surprising it hasn't happened before."

"It was an embarrassing lapse in judgement." Lisa confirmed. "However I must emphasise that the explosion was only minor, and neither S-12 or myself were in any danger. However, the decrepit state of the house meant that even minor damage was able to result in the offending fissure."

"And how much of that 'decrepit state' came from all that stuff you've blown up!?" Lynn snapped. "I thought the ceiling was gonna come down on us!"

"An unlikely event- for now at least," Lisa countered. "But I would recommend finding alternate lodgings for the immediate future."

The elder set of siblings sans Lisa shared a glance, and Lincoln shot Lisa a questioning look. Sighing Lisa pointed up, "if you will observe, the fractures are not limited to only the area of explosion."

Their eyes followed her finger, and sure enough beyond the main fissure there were smaller cracks with chunks of plaster falling away in places, eventually becoming innumerable hairline cracks that followed the walls in straight patterns. "If I am not mistaken, said cracks are following weakened sections in the overall structure that will need to be repaired before the household can be considered properly safe again.

 _Regardless_ of future experimentation or not, this house needs heavy repairs. I would estimate a full week at minimum for the reconstruction to be completed."

Lincoln stared with a measure of shock. Of course they'd all been well aware that their childhood home was an ancient and well-worn building; but the idea that the underlying structure was dangerous hadn't really occurred to him.

It should have been obvious in hindsight; the place was falling apart when he as a kid. But since he'd gown up with the place falling apart, he'd grown used to living around the splinters and sparks like the others. In reality though…

"This is place is kind of a death trap isn't it?" Luna muttered. "Geeze, is it even safe to be in here right now?"

"I would say that most of the rooms are perfectly safe for the immediate future." Lisa informed. "However that will rapidly change if heavy repairs and reconstruction are not performed, from my current analysis I would place the overall structure as being a year from total condemnation-"

A low groan emitted from the house, and suddenly water began trickling from one of the cracks.

"I would like to revise my estimate. Also; evacuate immediately."

* * *

Thus is was that The Loud House was effectively mothballed for the foreseeable future.

It turned out that Lisa's estimates were in fact very optimistic, the overall repairs would take a little over a month at a minimum; and that was with Lana's connections (and the woman herself on hand). If it weren't for Lisa's own undisclosed sources of cash, Lincoln was reasonably certain they wouldn't have been able to do anything but bulldoze the old home memories or not.

As it was; they obviously couldn't stay within. Thus the then current residents had their stays cut short, or found temporary accommodation.

Lynn and Rita Loud were granted a month-long holiday in a location of their choosing and went on a full trip around Europe. Lincoln suspected Lisa was at least partially trying to bribe them after all the nonsense she'd pulled.

The other adults had their own lives to return to, even if some had been looking forwards to spending time in their old home. The children simply returned to their mothers' homes with them, Lola having been decisively less than pleased to find her eldest teary eyed and (temporarily) bald under a pink beanie since the 'dye' had been dangerous.

Where exactly Lisa had gone with Lulu remained a mystery, though Lincoln had a running bet that she was just hibernating with her child in one of her old cryogenics pods in the bunker.

As for Lincoln himself…

He lay in a hotel room, all amenities covered for the full month and ready to relax.

And he was happy.

It wasn't just because that last day had been trying even by his standards; for the first time in literal years Lincoln Loud had a holiday from childcare. No changing nappies, or playing peacemaker, or getting vomited on, or having to _wear_ his progeny in some weird poncho…

Instead, he relaxed.

He read his comics. He called Clyde and shared some conversation about stuff that wasn't about his kids for once. He left a message for Ronnie. He went to Woofers with Clyde and enjoyed ordering overpriced food while pretending he wasn't looking at the waitresses. He got _drunk_ because he could afford to get a hangover for once.

He did all the things he'd wanted to do but couldn't for years.

And then he was bored.

One week had passed since he'd waved his kids goodbye, and he was… tired. Empty. His entire life had revolved around caring for them for so long now that he wasn't used to not doing just that anymore.

He didn't have a regular job anymore to occupy his time and set his life around.

Instead his habit was to rise early to make breakfast with his own father, then search for wriggly little bodies and make sure they were safely tied to him. Every few hours he instinctively looked for a crawling child to feed and change.

While he read, he felt his anxiety rise until he remembered that the background was empty of baby babble for a good reason, not because they were off in the vents again or getting hurt out of sight. He slept poorly and clutched at his pillow- half dreaming that it was a warm little body that hugged back.

It was funny, two weeks ago he dreamed of life before his kids. Not that he hated being their father, he'd gotten attached to them of course, but he'd be lying if he didn't miss the freedom and fun of living for himself (well, himself and Ronnie). But now… it was like a switch had been flipped, and a month to himself was empty after the first few days.

He was lonely too, Clyde had his own life after all and couldn't spend most nights chatting away with his old friend just because. Ronnie was still more than slightly frosty with him, and most of his other friends had drifted away across the years.

"It sounds like empty nest syndrome," Dad's voice was tinny on the phone.

"I thought that only happened after they moved out?" Lincoln wondered aloud, staring at the lake his room opened into.

"Hmm… maybe it's separation anxiety?" Mom interjected.

"I've never had it before, and most of the kids aren't even with me most days anyway."

"Well you've never had _all_ of them away before now have you? I don't think you've had _time_ to think about not having one for too long before another one needed you for something."

"Maybe…" he thought it over. Ever since the first few had popped out of Lisa, he'd not had a day to himself. The first months had been hellish what with getting used to not sleeping through the night, the constant feedings, loss of his individual life (including his own job and income) and slow disintegration of what remained of his relationship with Ronnie-Anne. Then with the exception of Lola and Lisa, Lori through to Lily had given birth and… he honestly didn't remember most of that time.

But since then he'd been used to it, sure he still longed for the all-too-infrequent breaks of his nigh constant duty. But he'd gotten attached the little tykes, and they seemed to be a least a little attached to him too (a lot in some cases, if the way Leia and a few others demanded his attention was any indication).

And being a part of their lives… seeing them approach everything with new wonder and joy, watching them grow and blossom into their own personalities day by day; becoming _someone_ as they grew bigger in body and mind was an experience he wasn't sure anyone who wasn't a parent could really understand.

And now he was far away from all of that.

The room was cold as the breeze came in from over the lake and there was not a single person who needed him within miles.

"Yeah, actually; I think you might be right."


	20. A Single Day

**A Single Day**

Despite his diagnosis, there was little to be done, the kids were well out of reach for a bit of impromptu bonding. While Lincoln was still near enough to Royal Woods that contact with the sisters still living there was feasible, he and his parents were the only ones 'on holiday'.

Everyone was a grown adult at this point and only Lily was still attending university, so all of his sisters were far too busy to make the multi-hour trip to his hotel. Going down himself wouldn't be a problem if he still had his own car, but like most of his pre-parent life it was long gone.

Besides; the girls and their progeny already had schedules of their own. If he just showed up out of the blue he'd only get a few hours with whatever kids were resided in whichever sister's house he appeared at before having to return to the hotel, since no one could really house him for a full month. No, if he wanted a good proper day of together time with as many kids as possible he'd have to arrange things well in advance, and even then a good many of said children would likely get left out simply because their parent lived far flung from their hometown now.

For better or worse Lincoln was for the next month effectively a bachelor once again….

"Well you'll be back with the tykes again soon enough," Dad assured him, vaguely French music echoing in the background of the call. "I know that you've already tried some of your old hobbies, but if you're anything like me and your mother there were probably a lot of other things that you couldn't do and ended up forgetting."

"What, you mean like loading up my old Netfl-"

"No, they've been awful for years," Mom's venom was intercontinental. "But maybe you could renew some of your old friendships, pick up some of your interests from before this all started- didn't you have a webcomic?"

"You mean 'Magician's Mysterium?'" Lincoln _had_ tried that kind of online publishing but… "I shut it down years ago and it wasn't ever really successful anyway. The audience is long gone at this point."

"Well you don't need to _publish_ anything," Mom chided. "Just make something for yourself again, make a _routine_ of some of the things you used to do so you don't just sit there moping about what you don't have."

"… You know, I don't really have anything else to do so I guess there's no harm," The Magician could have a few _off the books_ adventures. Heck, there wouldn't even be that one guy who hated everything but still came back to complain in the comments of every new page!

"Maybe you could give Ronnie a call while you're at it," Dad's voice cut in. "I bet that-"

"Oh hey look at the time, I bet it's really late where you are," Lincoln quickly thumbed the 'end call' button. "I wouldn't want to keep you up late for your big day!"

"Lincoln it's barely eight p.m. where we are-"

"Thanksfortheadvicebye!"

"You two are good for each-" his parent's well-intentioned, but years past welcome persistence in his love life was mercifully cut off by the convenience of a button.

* * *

Honestly though; the idea of rebuilding old habits was a good one. He was currently trained to constantly attend to a dozen (minimum) children's needs, while he might be feeling some… tenderness from the separation, living like this was just some extended break left him inevitably falling back into instincts that he couldn't fulfill.

But making a new schedule to distract himself? That could work.

He fished around in his old backpack, a trusty battered thing that had crossed more national borders than he would admit (for various reasons) and pulled free a drawing pad that had been obsolete when he'd bought it- but it was a sturdy thing and for what he paid it was darn good quality. The battery was _very_ dead at this point and the charging port was decades outdated- but it was nothing a (moderately) good power pack and adapter couldn't fix.

And so it was that the old hardware booted up, and with a few clicks opened up on the last few pages that he'd been drawing- mere outlines in panels made in preparation for a monthly update that never came. The comic had already been bleeding views as updates became fewer and fewer, then finally the 'hiatus' began when he'd moved back into the house. At the time he'd rationalised that he could go to a more frequent schedule when he'd adapted- but as his unconscious escapades had proven, he'd never 'adapted'.

Now all that was left were the old notes of the story he'd been working on at the time- and the planning panels that held the basic sketches that would or would not eventually become something. The sticky-taped together stylus was familiar in his hands as he got to work- but the panels…

They were not.

He'd thought that the story was etched into his skull, but across the years details were forgotten; little things like the exact cut of the cape Magician wore and the particular gait that Clarence Conner used after breaking his ankle. Every time he started something, a little niggling detail stood out for some reason and he would need to flip back to the finished panels to see why-

Oh, Magician should have a bruise here from the fight earlier…

Conner's eyes are a different shade of green, just shift the shade a bit for the lighting and…

His style seemed to have changed too. He tried to go draw in the heavily detailed lines, and curves that had developed from his first scribbles years ago. But he found himself using softer, almost liquid shapes and expressions that cartoonishly emphasised the emotions of the characters and atmospheric mood rather than adhere to any hard and fast ideas about biology and architecture.

His hand was rapidly cramping up as well, the well trained muscles of his drawing hand having long since gone to seed. By the time he gave in to the cramping in his arm it to was barely forty-five minutes into the session and the drawn panel looked… different from the rest of the comic to say the least.

"Dang it!" He flipped through the comic, reading over his notes and the finished panels from so long ago. Maybe he if he just back into the mindset he had when he first wrote and drew them…

But it was little use. While his notes were clear enough, the real spark of creativity that used to drive him was talking with the fans, going over the ideas with Ronnie or just remembering the weirder parts of his day and reworking them into ideas for the story.

Truthfully, _most_ of The Magician's adventures were exaggerated retellings of his own misadventures from his early twenties onwards. Sure he could try and hammer away at the story until he put something out but the story would be abysmal in comparison to what it could have been. The fuel to the fire of creativity was his own life, and that part of it where he was running around the country (or countries) and getting and in and out of mishaps on a daily basis had come to a screeching halt with the conception of the first five children.

Trying to get back into that headspace of frantically writing, then sketching out some version of his latest escapade wasn't going to work. The last two years were nothing like Magician's usual adventures, the notes weren't enough to spark something from the memories of his last pre-parent 'adventure' and his fans were long gone.

But still… he thumbed across his notes. He had been in the middle of a story, one about Magician finding an illusive man who had stolen a sacred artifact and returning it to its rightful owner before it damned the world. It was kind of fitting that the series had ended there, the webcomic's forums last meme being about how Magician had obviously slipped up and ended the series.

But he didn't really _need_ to continue from here did he?

His mind lit up; this was just something for himself right? Just a little thing to take his mind off his troubles, there was no need to worry about continuity or the overarching plot. He could just start anywhere and see where the story lead.

He drew up his notes document and waited for something to come to him…

_Anything at all._

_Riiiiight- NOW!_

_Yeah no_ ; practically any author upon being told to 'just write something' would find themselves frozen in indecision. Sure, they could 'write anything', but without something to start with, or better yet an ending to write _to_ , they'd find themselves seemingly plagued with the emptiness of the page.

Just like how the blank white of Lincoln's empty notes seemed to mock him.

He switched the annoying tablet off and thought again; just staring at a page had never been part of his process. From his early drawings he had always started with something from around him and grown from there, from his fan comics with The Full House Gang to his webcomic he'd always taken something from what he knew.

But neither Ace or Magician sitting in a hotel was his idea of a good story. If he was going to draw something, it had to be something fun. He wasn't going to just make up something about Magician sitting on his arse and binging some old Zombie movies.

In the old days this would be when he went out and found some inspiration, maybe in a bar or sometimes sieving through some local police cases (thefts mostly, no wetwork in his portfolio!). But Lisa's 'all expenses' paid deal didn't cover anything outside the hotel, and after years without a proper job he was _very_ broke.

How much fun and inspiration could he find in a hotel?

* * *

More than he would have expected, turned out.

"Is this your card Madam?" Lincoln presented a play card to the slightly overweight woman before him.

"No," the woman raised an eyebrow. "Mine was the eight of clubs."

"Gosh darn it," Lincoln sighed and shuffled the card back into his deck, before fishing out his wallet. "I guess that means I owe you five, but maybe-"

He opened his wallet to reveal a single playing card, and he pulled it free to reveal an eight of clubs before the astounded woman. "-you'd prefer an eight instead?"

"H-how?" the bamboozled bourgeoisie gasped. "I shuffled the deck myself- you would have had to have known before you came in?"

"A magician never reveals their secrets," Linc gave the woman a cheeky wink. "But I _might_ be persuaded to let in on a hint if you give me a tip first…"

She chortled, and handed him a ten dollar note. "Well a bet's a bet, any other tricks up your sleeve Mr…"

"Naranja," Lincoln slipped into his old (admittedly on the nose) alias by instinct. "No, sorry- my name's Lincoln-"

The woman laughed, "well Mr Orange sure fits you just fine." She raised a glass to him, and looked to the side. "Well as much as I would like to stay and see what else you have up your sleeve- my husband is calling and I only have so much small change to lose…"

"I understand," he carefully replaced his pack of cards into the little plastic holder he used to keep them from being bent. "Can I hope to see you some time?"

"Oh my!" She laughed as she left. "A charmer too? You can count on it."

It was a simple game, but an effective one. Lincoln had a variety of interests, and one of them happened to be magic tricks. While he wasn't quite good enough to perform on stage- or at least to make a living off it, he certainly skilled enough to fool anyone who wasn't trained. All he had to do was go up to mark in a bar, smooze them a bit and then make the bet; five dollars to them if he couldn't pull off some little trick without them figuring it out and five to him if he successfully pulled it off. It was easy, most people had seen how magicians pulled off some of their tricks on youtube- so when he did something in a different way than they knew and gave them a show they'd usually hand over the five without a problem. After that someone from the crowd would pop in and ask if he'd do another trick, and then the cycle would start and continue.

Sure, one or two people would sometimes call him out. But he'd never had a night where he came home with less than he'd come in. The hotel bar was no different- except that the clientele were a bit more loaded than the seedy joints he used to frequent so he got a bit more 'generosity' as demonstrated with his last 'client'.

Lincoln kept up the smile as the woman left, then dropped it a bit when he saw the slightly sour expression on her husband's face. It wasn't like he was trying to emasculate the man, but a bit of… 'charm' never hurt when he was playing stage magician-

Except for that _one_ time in Acapulco.

And then in Carmen…

And Baja-

Actually no; 'charm' seemed to have gotten in him a lot of trouble in hindsight.

To be fair though, putting up a confident, playful persona always seemed to help with the magic tricks. Ninety percent of the magician's trade was convincing the other person you _could_ trick them, and projecting confidence was about ninety percent of doing _that_.

But maybe… he could work on avoiding anything that could be seen as flirtatious- even if it was accidental. Maybe it was just the guy, after all; Ronnie had been with him on a lot of those 'adventures' and she'd never-

 _Wait_.

_Weren't those usually around the times when she called things off-_

"Scamming old ladies Loud?" A flat voice cut into his thoughts. "Somehow I never saw you as a conman-"

His smile froze- _who?_

He found himself turning to see a woman from the crowd addressing him, dressed in a light purple jacket with a black blouse and skirt it took him a moment to realise who she was under the dim lights of the establishment.

"But that would make you a good one, wouldn't it?" Maggie smirked and she took a seat beside him.

"Maggie?" He queried. "You're here?"

"Uhh, yeah?" The woman seemed nonplussed with his silly question. "I'm here for work- why are _you_ playing dancing monkey in a hotel bar? I didn't think you even had time for this kind of thing with the circus you have at your house."

"Well…" Lincoln looked into the drink he had and saw there were a few sips left. "It's a long story."

"I've got time," Maggie shrugged. "But this place is a bit crowded, you wanna talk in my room?"

* * *

"… So now I'm stuck here for a good month, probably longer." Lincoln sighed. "It was fun for the first week but…"

"One scene gets old, I'm photographer, I know." The tall woman agreed, sitting on her bed while Lincoln relayed his tale to her.

"Really? My sister does the same-"

"Lucy and I have different _specialties_ ," Maggie interjected with uncharacteristic quickness. "I focus more on natural landscapes, Lucy is more…"

"Creepy old houses?" Lincoln shuddered.

"Yes, her ability to capture the beauty of what was lost is… _exquisite_ ," she sighed.

"Hmm, you know; she likes your work too." Lincoln flipped his phone open, "I'm pretty sure she follows you on Slap Book-"

"We're in a group together," Maggie bluntly informed him.

"A group?" Well they did seem to have similar interests so-

"Loud Mothers," Maggie's lips twitched.

Lincoln froze. " _What_ Mothers?"

" _Loud_ Mothers," Maggie slowly drew her phone from her jacket pocket and she showed him the page for the group in question.

" _A support group for fellow victims of The Log_!?" Lincoln read incredulously.

Maggie raised an eyebrow, then turned the screen back to read it. "Oh yeah- your sister wrote it for fun. I'm mostly sure she's joking."

"Mostly!?" Lincoln crossed his arms. "You all- I was _comatose_!"

"Bring it up with Luan then," Maggie shrugged. "Whatever, the point is that everyone that we know who has a kid by you gets an invite to share tips."

" _I_ didn't get an invite!" Lincoln protested. "And I'm the one who needs help the most!"

"It's Loud _Mothers_ ," Maggie dryly emphasised. "If you want in, go talk to your mad scientist sister to install a womb to carry one these things for nine months and _then_ we'll talk."

The man rolled his eyes, "you know, when I was a kid I thought all the 'secret girl club' stuff stopped happening when you grew up."

Maggie allowed a rare smirk- but whatever she was going to say was interrupted as her doorbell rang. The well built woman made her way over to the door and a hotel maid came through, pushing a pram.

Lincoln's world slowed down for a moment, as the wheels of his mind whirred.

"… the creche closed half an hour ago-"

As far as he knew, Maggie only had one child.

"I paid for another four…"

The maid wouldn't have a reason to push the pram into Maggie's room if it wasn't hers.

"Our overnight caretaker fell ill…"

Therefore….

"Fine. I can take her, but let your boss know I want a refund for those hours." Maggie sounded grumpy for some reason. But Lincoln wasn't worried about that, he was busy creeping over to the pram. Inside was an infant of around six or seven months old, clothed in a purple-grey onesie and semi-swaddled with a little black blanket. She had a tuft of black hair and a pale complexion that reflected her mother, but as he crept up to her she opened her eyes and her mouth opened into a yawn that became a sort of open smile.

It was her.

And Lincoln felt the enthusiastic need to let the room know;

"There's my Gloomy-Goo!" The suddenly cheerful man reached forward and scooped up the infant with both arms, startling the maid and prompting Maggie to sigh.

"Just go- I'll talk to him in the morning." Maggie shut the door the moment the maid sheepishly drew the pram out.

Lincoln meanwhile was happily continuing to ignore everything besides the coddled infant in his arms as he held her up and gave a little twirl. "Oh I missed you, yes I did- did you miss me!?"

Gloom let out a happyish gurgle as she stared at the white haired man presently spinning on the spot. Grinning, the man drew her close and gently squeezed her little body into a hug, prompting the infant to blow spit bubbles into his ear.

"If you keep spinning her she's going to hurl." Maggie pointed out.

Lincoln snapped out of his happy spin as he regained his senses. Sure enough the little face currently nestled into his neck was staring at him with happiness, but from hard earned experience he could feel that he was squishing her cartilaginous body a bit too much. As a now battle-worn parent he knew that giving in to the urge to cuddle as much as the child could seemingly handle was a trap.

Babies after all are apparently helpless, being both cute and too immobile to escape an overly-enthusiastic hugger. But they are also little more than a head and limbs attached to a digestive system, and thus prone to reward over-squeezing with a suitably large excretion from both ends.

Look back at the smirking woman he flushed as he realised that not only did Maggie- a woman he barely knew, but also a maid who would probably blab to the rest of staff saw him go completely silly. "Ahem, ahh…"

"It's fine, just sit her on the bed before you drop her." Maggie pointed, and Lincoln sat down where she indicated, sitting the infant in between his crossed legs and giving her a firm (but not 'cover me with your dinner' firm) hug so she couldn't crawl away. "Believe me, I can appreciate a Dad who cares"

"Oh…" Lincoln realised he had never seen Maggie's father.

"Just sit there, and try not to squeeze her too much." Maggie sighed, sitting down across from him. They remained silent for a minute, Gloom making vaguely pleased sounds and the occasional bit of baby babble.

"… Has she said her first word yet?"

"No, but I think she's close," Maggie smiled a little as she stared down at the infant. "She's been making all kinds of sounds lately."

"Really?" He stared down at the head below. "She's always quiet when she over at the house."

"She's not really comfortable with strangers," Maggie shrugged. "Your house is filled up people she doesn't know."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Gloom was a rare visitor to the Loud House, Maggie traveled for work but she usually took the child with her. When she was there, she was stuck with an ever changing-roster of siblings, and Lincoln had never seen her really reach out to any of them (as much as a baby could), preferring to stay in a corner with one of the adults. "I don't ever really get much one on one time with any of the kids either, but I'm glad we got this at least- right Gloomy?"

The child looked up at his face promptly, but blinked uncomprehendingly.

"Yeah she likes me." Lincoln declared with confidence.

"I think she likes you too," Maggie sighed. "Not that I'm sorry to have you together but-"

"Oh- did you need to get some sleep?" Lincoln looked at the clock- it was still early but if her job needed her to go hiking to get a specific spot…

"No, that's not it." Maggie frowned. "I was going to say; since the creche isn't open we're not going to be… doing 'that'."

"That?" Lincoln repeated in confusion.

" _That_." Maggie insisted. "That 'thing' we did to make Gloom."

Lincoln blinked, and flushed. "Se- sleeping together?" He hissed.

"Why did you _think_ I invited you into my room _alone_?" The pale woman looked at him like he was stupid.

To be fair, Lincoln certainly felt like it, but still; "you could have just wanted to talk!" He protested. "Catch up like on things."

"We barely know each other, and the main reasons are between your legs." Maggie bluntly pointed at the infant, and presumably the thing that had seeded her tucked away in his pants.

"You could have just been being friendly," Lincoln contested.

Maggie stared at him flatly, and Lincoln felt his blush felt start to travel down his neck. "… Lincoln Loud, be honest with me; how many women have been 'friendly' with you like this?"

"Plenty!" He declared.

"Plenty of women have asked you go to their bedrooms?"

"Yes!"

"At night?"

"It sounds weird when you say it like that," he countered. "But they just wanted to talk!"

Maggie's eye narrowed. "Loud, did those women ever lock the door when they talked with you?"

"How am I supposed to remember that?" He tried to draw his memories to the forefront. "… A few times I think- but that was usually in a hotel room, you don't want random people just barging in by accident-"

"You're hopeless." The woman sighed. "You know that half of the school was interested in you right?"

The man snorted. "You mean back in middle and high school?" The woman nodded. "That's dumb, most of those girls could barely stand me- they'd get creeped out just because I was nearby!"

"They were nervous because they _liked_ you." Maggie insisted.

"Oh please, I-"

"Rejected dozens of girls?" Maggie rolled her eyes. "Without even knowing it either apparently."

"You're teasing me." The man flatly replied. " _None_ of those girls ever did something that was-"

"Women don't come out and say these things," Maggie leaned forward. "We have to be more subtle about it, or we get a reputation. Trust me Lincoln Loud; as the mother of one of your _many_ children, those girls wanted you for something and it wasn't to play on your Gamestation."

Lincoln regarded her; she didn't _seem_ to be lying, but she was nearly as hard to read as Lucy. Well not really, but still hard to read on a good day. "… Well even if you're serious, it's way too late now- and how was I supposed to know the difference between a girl being friendly or 'friendly'? If I got it wrong I'd get labelled creepy again!"

The pale woman leaned back. "Well 'Girl Guru'-"

"That was years ago, please let it go-"

"Sometimes you need to try and read between the lines to get the full story," She reached forward and gently plucked the now dozing infant from between Lincoln's legs. "Think about that while I put Gloom to bed."

Lincoln did indeed think while the woman took the sleepy child to a cot in the corner. But not on the silly theory she'd presented. Lincoln Loud knew the score for his High School self and prospective playboy he had _not_ been. But the line she had used, 'sometimes you need to try and read between the lines'…

That was something his old critic from the Magician's Mysterium used to use, usually about some clearly villainous character he had written apparently having some secret redeeming motivation behind their antagonism. Of course Lincoln himself had known better, he wrote the characters after all (even if he based them on people he'd had the misfortune to know), however his polite but persistence corrections had always fallen on deaf ears.

But now…

"Hey," Lincoln called, quietly so to not wake his sleepy baby. "Do you know about an old webcomic called Magicians Mysterium?"

Maggie tucked her child away, then turned to him with a blank face. "Yeah? What about it?"

"Um…" how to approach this… "you wouldn't have happened to leave _comments_ -"

"Oh yeah…" the women gave a little smile. "I used to try and get the author to pull his head out of his ass- half the time the 'bad guys' were just misunderstood and…."

She kept talking after that, but Lincoln tuned out as he realised that he was facing his old nemesis. The reality; he had (unwillingly) had sex with, and borne a child with….

"You're Sicko68!" Lincoln declared- as loudly he dared with a sleeping baby in the room.

"Yeah," She smirked. "Did my old catchphrase tip you off?"

"Yes, you used to argue with the author about _everything_!"

"Well, the story needed work," she folded her arms and looked off in remembrance. "The stuff he was writing had potential; but he never really reached it-"

"Hey!" He protested. "I bet he worked really hard on it- I liked it!"

"Well it was _okay_ ," Maggie dismissed. "But he never really improved. It's a shame- but it was cancelled after a few years anyway-"

"It's just on hiatus!"

"It's dead." The woman shrugged. "Trust me; if he wanted to keep going then-"

"I have kids now!" He pointed at the sleeping infant. "It's not my…. fault…" Lincoln trailed off as he realised that he'd given the game away.

Maggie stared at him, and whatever lie he could come up with died in his throat.

"…. Blackhat?"

Lincoln numbly nodded, knowing the game was up.

Maggie closed her eyes, and then approached the bed. Instinctively Lincoln scooted back, but the woman knelt onto the bedspread and approached him, now with open eyes and-

A full smile.

"Well, well… _well_ ," the woman's eyes twinkled with something. "It's seems like we have more than Gloom to talk about tonight-"

Lincoln's eyes darted to the door, "I should really get-"

"Let's start with why Magician and Mayhem never got to together despite the clear attraction-"

A bitter moan drew up through his mouth as he remembered one of many reasons he'd spend literal nights arguing with this woman. "Oh sweet Christ you're a _shipper_."

"I am _the_ Maghem shipper," Maggie corrected. "And just so you know- I _did_ lock the door."

* * *


	21. Starting the Marathon

**Starting the Marathon  
**

"Uhhhh," Gloom groaned, tears forming in her eyes as she sourly stared up in her cot. The infant wasn't much for words, not even having made it past her first year yet. Thus it was up to her beleaguered parent to try and figure out what her various sounds meant.

Of course, today she was up on her usual parent count.

"Why hello there Gloomy, are we having a bit of tummy trouble?" Her father softly spoke as he reached down to unbutton the onesie from the back. The girl whimpered as he drew her up to get at the button behind her neck but kept to sniffles as he drew her clothing down, freeing her arms and baring her chest.

"She gets like this after a feeding," Maggie sighed. "Not always, but when it happens _nothing_ helps."

Lincoln hummed as he nodded along, and gently pressed a finger into the infant's firm stomach. "She feels like she's got a bit of wind in her."

"That's what my Mom said too," the woman frowned. "We've tried a lot, but it's like she gets plugged up inside- what are you doing?"

Lincoln finished gently pulling off the onesie from Gloom's legs. "Just trying something."

He unclipped the clean nappy from the unusually sour-faced infant, baring her fully to the world before gently grasping both of her lower legs with his hands. Slowly, but firmly he lifted the right foot so that it pointed at the ceiling- much to Glooms displeasure as the pressure in her tummy increased.

"Mhhh," the infant whimpered.

"Just a little more…." Lincoln pushed the right leg further by a centimetre-

"FPPPRT."

The wet fart echoed through the room, startling Maggie as Gloom giggled in relief.

"Well you sure were backed up weren't you?" Lincoln sighed as he regarded his newly ruined orange shirt. "Well no harm in it now."

He drew the leg back, then pushed forward again- and like a very silly slot machine another absurdly loud (if less so than the original) fart emitted from the little body.

"This is something my Mom taught me," he looked over his shoulder to explain. "It's just a little thing that sometimes works if they're gassy."

"I think we tried something like it," Maggie observed his hands. "But she just cried when we did it."

"It depends on a few things, sometimes it just doesn't work." Lincoln shrugged as he continued his gentle motions- working out the wind from the infant with firm motions. "But as long you don't push too far in at once or too fast it's not going to hurt them- you wanna try?"

Maggie stared at the 'interesting' brown-black pattern on the man's chest. "No, I think I'll just 'observe your technique'."

"Fair enough," the man stared at the now happy girl blabbing nonsense and issuing giggles with every fart.

"Fppprt!" Her butt delivered.

"Wow, you know I thought Luna's were going to be the musicians. But here you've gone and mastered the butt-tuba before either of them!" Lincoln continued to work the little leg back and forth until Gloom's little 'performance' issued no more notes.

A troublesome infant coupled with clothing covered in faecal matter at eight in the morning; if Lincoln Loud had been missing his usual schedule then he'd certainly managed to recreate it.

"Could you get me some baby wipes?"

* * *

"So, how long are you here for?" Lincoln queried as the now properly dressed woman finished packing Gloom into her car seat. "I've got a few-"

"I'm checking out today," Maggie bluntly replied. "Once I get the shot I'm going up to Canada, all the way up to the NorthWestern Territories for two weeks.'"

"Oh…" Lincoln deflated. "I see."

Maggie paused, then turned to him with a slight softening of her usual no-nonsense expression. "Sorry Loud, last night was fun but I can't take time off work. I'd let you catch up with Gloom but-"

"I'm still banned from Canada…" Lincoln sighed.

"Yea- wait what?" Maggie raised an eyebrow.

"Nothing" he distracted. "I mean, the only other option for that would obviously be leaving her with me and a hotel isn't really good for a baby." He imagined caring for Gloom alone for two weeks. Honestly he could probably handle it (especially with the creche open), but he doubted Maggie would want to be separated for that long. "I _understand_."

The woman looked at him for a moment, but apparently decided to go along with his story. She hesitantly reached over. "Thanks. But Loud?"

"Yeah?"

"It's just a thought," the woman nodded to his now clean shirt. "But If you're missing your kids enough that you don't mind _cleaning their shit_ , maybe you should go see them."

Lincoln raised an eyebrow. "… I can still take Gloom if that's what-"

"I meant go down to town and visit them." Maggie clarified. "Seriously; what else are you doing up here?"

"I thought I explained this," Lincoln sighed. "Most of their moms don't even live in Royal Woods anymore- if I tried to make a day to go see them all-"

"I don't mean organise some big meetup," Maggie explained. "I mean, why don't you go and see each one at a time?"

"One at a time?" Lincoln ran the thought through his mind again. "I could maybe do that for some of the ones in Royal Woods- but it'd only be a few hours long."

"Why?"

"I don't have a car anymore," the man opened his arms to the lot of cars as if to indicate the absence of his own. "And none of the girls have space for me- so I'd have to take the bus there, spend maybe three or four hours there and then just come back here to sleep and do it all over again the next day."

Maggie seemed to think for a moment. "… Doesn't your family still use that rust bucket?"

"You mean Vanzilla?" Maggie nodded in confirmation. "Yeah, we _need_ it for carting around the kids."

"You said your parents were in Europe right?" Maggie thought. "I'm guessing they didn't take it with them?"

Lincoln's mind stretched back for the details. "… No, no, Lisa got them a full package so they're on a cruise. I think Lana's got it while the house is being fixed."

"Well do you think they'd mind if you borrowed it?" Maggie pointedly ignored the now bored Gloom tugging at her arm. "If you really wanted to, you could probably sleep in _that_ while you're visiting. Maybe you could go see some of your other kids too."

Lincoln turned the idea over in his mind… "yeah… yeah! That might just work!" He declared with excitement; "I could make a road trip of it- I could even go to Great Lakes and New York!"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Maggie gave him a little smile. "I bet those kids would love see their Dad too."

"I can see all of them!" Lincoln rambled. "Maybe I could even catch up to Luna's band- if she's gotten over her thing anyway- this could actually work!" He suddenly reached forward and hugged the surprised woman who froze- "thank you Maggie!- oh sorry-"

She relaxed and surprisingly hugged him back. "Don't worry about it Loud, just go let those kids of yours know how much you care."

Lincoln held onto her body's warmth for a bit longer, then let her go. Gloom gave him a spitty 'kiss' (or maybe just drooled on him) when he hugged her goodbye and might have waved at him as her mother started the car. He stood there in the cold morning air as the engine started up and took the Maggie and their child first from the hotel parking lot, then into the distance towards Canada.

Then they were gone, leaving Lincoln with only memories and a plan.

And a need for transport.

* * *

"…So I'm going to meet up with Lana, then go and see everyone I can," the white haired Man dipped his fry into his sauce.

Clyde McBride regarded his old friend skeptically. It had been many years since the once gangly boy had accepted his friend's many schemes probable success at face value, and for good reason. "And the girls are aware of this?"

"I'll be giving them a heads up-" Lincoln swallowed his fry. "It's not like I'm just gonna drop in on them unannounced."

"Hmm," Clyde narrowed his eyes. Between the two, Lincoln was one who had changed the least, while he had certainly grown up under his trademark orange shirt, the 'man with a plan' had retained his knack for getting into weird situations and finding even stranger solutions- and it was a coin toss if said solution worked or made things far, far worse. Clyde meanwhile had come to appreciate the value of a steady, if slower and less interesting rise to success.

Now, sitting across from the man the differences in their life choices seemed clear. Clyde sat with a well muscled body under a clean, if unimpressive suit. The very picture of a young professional getting on with his life if not for the location. Lincoln meanwhile retained his casual white long sleeved shirt and the traffic cone orange short sleeve buttoned up one on top of it- he practically looked the same as he did when they were in college.

The fact they were eating at a Woofers of all places _again_ didn't help any pretences of maturity.

"So, when did you decide on this?" Clyde drank down his sweetened coffee. "Because we met up what, two days ago and you didn't _seem_ to be planning some cross-country trip then?"

"With Maggie this morning," Lincoln asserted. "I called up Lana just after she left and-"

"Wait!" Clyde halted him with a hand, then turned said hand to a point at him. "… What _exactly_ did you and Miss Dark and Mysterious do last night?"

Lincoln flushed. "We just talked."

"Just talked?"

"Yep, just talked." Lincoln pointedly started drinking down his soda. "That's _all_."

Clyde leaned back. "You, met up with a _highly_ attractive woman, who has not only slept with you before-"

"Would pointing out that I didn't get a choice-"

"- but _has a kid_ with you," Clyde pointedly ignored him. "Spent the night with her- and you're telling me you just _talked_ all night long?"

Lincoln sighed. "Look, you remember that troll from the when the comic was running?"

"Sicko69?" Clyde nodded.

"Sicko68 actually- don't ask me why she didn't go for that low hanging fruit-"

"She? How would you know-" Clyde paused as his mind put the pieces together. "… _No_."

"Yes," Lincoln put his drink down. "Turns out that 'That Prick' was actually 'This Bitch' all along."

"And Maggie- dang, she doesn't seem the type." Clyde went back to forking through his salad.

"You never can tell," Lincoln shook his head. "Luan mentioned that she had a 'fun side', but-"

"But did you _see_ her 'fun side'?" Clyde refocused. "Come on Linc- you're not getting of it that easy."

"… Look Clyde; she's a frigging _shipper_ ," Lincoln face soured. "It was like going to a con- except there wasn't any security to pull the creepy fangirls off. I spend the entire time just trying to block out an essay on why Mayhem and Magician were clearly 'butt buddies'-"

"You know, I can see it-"

"Maggie being a secret shipper or 'Maghem' being a thing?"

"Yes."

"Damn you Clyde."

The other man chuckled, "you can't deny that the two had chemistry-"

"Excuse me?" A woman with short hair and a winning smile interrupted them- bearing desserts. "Apple pie and a chocolate mousse?"

"Pie for me, mousse for him," Lincoln nodded over to Clyde. The cute blonde in booty shorts pointedly dipped down as she delivered the desserts, letting Lincoln get a good look at the swell of her buttocks before rising back up and flashing them a flirty grin. "You boys let us know if you want anything else okay?"

"Sure.." Lincoln nodded, and watched her practically sashay away.

"… Lincoln?"

"Yeah?"

"Lincoln, you know that's a guy right?"

"…" Lincoln froze, and a quick glance up revealed that indeed- the server was wearing the male version of the revealing outfit the restaurant chain used. Woofers was a progressive company after all; since gay men and straight girls both had money to burn for their 'not porn', the board had long since embraced the idea of equality in their fanservice. "Dang it- it's _always_ a trap-"

"I mean it's fine if you're-"

"I'm _not_ gay." Lincoln groaned.

"I'm pretty sure that the whole futa thing-"

"Luna lost this argument too."

"That's not what I heard-"

"Well you heard wrong," Lincoln insisted. "And just for the record: futa is _not_ gay!"

Clyde stared at him.

"It's not!"

Clyde continued staring at him.

"… Oh what would you know-"

"I have two Dads." The long-suffering man sighed. "I'm pretty sure I've got a good idea what's gay what's not. And my man; a futa is just a trap without any balls."

"Shut up Clyde." Lincoln huffed.

"Whatever you say Linc," Clyde rolled his eyes and continued eating his salad. "I didn't drive you from the middle of nowhere just to listen to you go into denial _again_. Just when is Lana supposed to come pick you up anyway?"

Lincoln checked his watch. "I'm meeting her in half an hour- but she has kids so she could be hours late."

"I hear you," Clyde nodded. "Little kids are killers on schedules- half the shift swaps in my team are because someone's kid got sick or something. But seriously; you're going all in on this?"

"Yep," Lincoln leaned back and threw his last curly chip into his mouth. "I've got over a month of nothing to do. Lana's got Vanzilla working again and most of the girls should be fine with it as long as I give them time to prepare- the worst that could happen is that I'd have to spend a few weeks in Vanzilla if the hotel wouldn't take me back or something. And hey; it's not like I'm not used to traveling in a car-"

"Yeah; I was there for some of that." Clyde winced in memories. "Can't say I miss it."

"Well you left before the fun stuff started," Lincoln shrugged, and drifted away into his own memories. "I don't think there's a state I haven't been to-"

"Lincoln; you _had_ to travel." Clyde reminded him. "You had an _arts degree_ in a recession. You practically lived in your car and chased odd jobs until now.

That doesn't sound like fun to me."

Lincoln grimaced as not-so-nice memories of cramped living in an eternally sour smelling car and hard labour from an endless march of casual jobs popped his nostalgia bubble. "Yeah well, I made a living and I paid off my student loans. How many art majors can say that?"

Clyde shook his head, "still should 'a gone STEM man…"

Lincoln sourly ignored him. True; the greatest extent of his hard won art skills were his now defunct webcomic, but before all this started he was well on his way to establishing a presence- a online persona and following to be leveraged into something more. Sure; Clyde's field was more stable, but if Lincoln had kept working at it, he was sure he would have-

"Hey Linc!" He found himself nudged by the other man, "quit moping- I think your sister's here!"

"Hunh?" Lincoln blinked, "we're supposed to meet at the park though-".

But whatever plans he had fell from his mind when pulled himself up to see one Lana Loud approaching the Royal Wood's Woofers. Vanzilla's long faded colours stood out behind her in the parking lot. Within the ancient vehicle, two little blonde girls waited with their usual 'enthusiasm'.

"Well… would you look at that" he said to himself with a smile. "Look's like we're about to start _before_ schedule after all."


	22. Interlude: Lops and Grandpa!

"-And then she _ate_ it!"

"Thus avoiding the pointless waste of valuable nutrients-"

Auntie Lisa and Grandma was arguing again in the kitchen, and they were all a bit more far away from the kitchen window than usual (next to Grandpa's plants!) so they couldn't hear Grandma and Auntie but sometimes Lops could hear them when the wind stopped blowing and she was still for a bit.

But she wasn't still for very long.

"Heads up shortstuff!" Auntie Lynn called out.

"Ok- oof!" Lops gasped as the ball bounced off her head.

"I warned you." Auntie Lynn said and Lops heard giggles from everyone else.

They were all playing ball outside while the sun was out. Her, Lizy, Lacy, Lynn Three (they had to Call Lynn two Auntie Lynn and Lynn One Grandpa, but their Lynn didn't get another name for some reason) and Lyle and Liena. Auntie Leni was here so she made them come out even though Lyle was a sissy who didn't like dirt and Liena always stayed with Lyle.

"You alright there tiny?" Auntie Lynn asked.

"Yea…" Lops nodded, glaring at the ball before she kicked it at Lynn Three. "But I not _tiny_!"

The ball bounced off Lynn Three's legs and she gasped and ran after it.

"Sure thing shortstop," Auntie Lynn smiled meanly.

Auntie Lynn was the mean Auntie. She made them do exercise when they all wanted to go watch Blarney or Cartoons. And she kept calling Lops short. Lops wasn't shorter than anyone else (much) and the babies were all smaller than her!

And Auntie Lynn was the shortest grownup so she wasn't allowed to be mean to anyone like that anyway.

But she got _meaner_ when Lops told her that anyway!

"I get ball!" Lynn said, running back while holding the ball above her head. The kids were all in a big circle with the two grownups. Auntie Lynn on the top to make sure everyone got sore and tired and Auntie Leni on the bottom closer to the fence so she could catch the ball before it got over since she was tall and could stop it.

Not like Auntie Lynn.

"Okay mini-me, throw it to Liena!"

"Okay!" Lynn Three chucked it at Liena, but it fell down too soon so Liena ran forward to go get it.

"Nice try L3, good job Liena- now go get ready to throw to the next person!"

Liena nodded and ran back to her spot. She looked around and smiled when she saw Lizy, then threw up from underneath the ball!

The ball went up!

And came down.

But not on Lizy.

The ball bopped Lops in the eye and she gasped again, falling back! Her butt landed on dirt though so she was okay.

"Ooopsie daisy!" Auntie Leni called out and Lops found herself being picked up. "Are you okay there Loops?"

"Her name's Lops Leni," Auntie Lynn said in her tired voice.

Auntie Leni never remembered her name properly. She didn't remember a lot of things properly but she was still really nice though.

"Yea." She spoke up before Auntie Leni got worried and called the wambulance again.

Wait! No; that's just what Auntie Lynn called it, everyone else called it something else….

"Okay sport, let's get you on your feet then." Auntie Lynn nodded to Auntie Leni who put her down feet first, "nice throw Liena but lets work on your aim okay?"

Lops brushed the dirt off the butt of her onesie and looked around-

"Oh no!" She gasped.

She'd landed in Grandpa's garden!

Not in the grown part though, but in the veggie patch. It was a big rectangle of smooth dirt, except for the raised bits where little green shoots were poking out, except now she could see a Lops-sized shape where her butt had been and the little plants inside were all squished.

"Ah, dang it" Auntie Lynn groaned.

* * *

"… and then she just fell in."

It wasn't too bad. Grandpa only put in the plants a short while ago, and Auntie Lynn was getting told off!

"it's okay L.J., but try to be more careful next time," Grandpa told her off! "If the ball goes over the fence I'm not sure the new neighbours are the type to give it back."

Auntie and Grandpa were talking in the other room while Lops got changed into clean clothes since her onesie was a little dirty from the dirt. Dad was doing it since Moms and other Dad weren't here (Lizy and her got two Moms and Dads, even if they had share one of them!), and Auntie Leni was still outside playing with the other kids.

"All right, leg through!" Dad called out and Lops put her foot into a fresh onesie leg.

"And the next one!"

It didn't take long for her to get dressed up. But Grandpa was suddenly there.

Grandpa was always nice, but Lops had never ruined his garden before. Grandpa loved his garden, what if he was mad?

Lops felt her face get hot and she hid her face in Dad's shirt.

"Ah, I could have sworn I saw little Lops around here," Grandpa said in his confused voice. "I guess she's not around."

It was working!

"… Seems not." Dad's voice sounded funny. "Maybe I could take a message?"

"Well since you're offering," Grandpa crouched down and whispered to Dad. "Lynn told me about the plants-"

Oh she was in so much trouble!

"- and I thought Lops might want to help me fix them up."

Wait, what?

"Ah, well I'm not sure she would." Dad said sadly. "She seems to have run off- it's really weird because she was here a moment ago."

"Dang it," Grandpa was sad now too. "And here I thought we could go and make a full day of it, just me and her-"

That sounded exciting!

Lops pulled her head out of Dad's shirt, "No wait! I down here!"

Grandpa and Dad gasped in surprise. Lops let go of Dad's shirt and ran over to Grandpa, "I sorry I broke your veggies, I help make them good again!"

Grandpa did that smile where his wrinkles got big and reached down and patted her on the head, "well as long as you're really sorry then I suppose we can go get started right away." Grandpa looked at Dad. "Son, could you go get her outside wear? We're going to be out for a bit."

* * *

Lops got dressed in her overalls and green hat, they looked just like Mom's work clothes except smaller and her hat was a different colour (Lizy got the red hat because she won scissor-paper-rock but Lops liked green better anyway) and got to ride in Vanzilla with Grandpa! She had to go in the special seat that went on seat and in the back like always but it was all quiet except for Grandpa and the Van noises so it was weird.

It a while to get there so Grandpa and her talked for a bit since they couldn't play anything, except for the 'silent' game. They got to play that after a while and Grandpa lost when they got to the store so Lops got a lolly!

Now they were in a big store with a really high ceiling and lots of space to fit all these long tables inside. Lops was too short to see the ones in front of her but way back down she could see they were covered up with boxes of dirt with little plants in them, and some of the ones in the back had pots with big plants in them instead.

"This is the Hazeltucky nursery," Grandpa said, holding her hand while she chewed on her lolly. "We have one in Royal Woods but this one has some more… exotic plants I think you might like."

Lops looked up in confusion, "what exotic?"

Grandpa's eyebrows went together like they did when he was thinking. "Hmm… I think it's a bit like special!"

"Special!" Lops liked special things!

"Yes, special _plants_." Grandpa said the word in a special way so she'd notice. "Do you want to go see?"

"Yea, go see special plants!" Lops tried to run forward, but Grandpa was slow so she pulled him!

Grandpa laughed sped up a bit. "Careful Lops, Grandpa's not as spry as you!"

"Go faster!" Lops commanded anyway, but slowed down when they got to the end of the plant tables. There was a few places they could go since the store had lots of glass rooms in front of them and a few places that were cut off from the other places with plastic sheets. "Where we go?"

"Well we have a few places we could go," Grandpa tapped his chin. "Maybe… no, _that_ place would be too scary for little Lops-"

"What place!?" Lops demanded, puffing herself up so Grandpa could see how big and strong she as. "I not scared!"

"Hmm…" Grandpa leaned down so he could get a good look at Lops. "I don't know… it might be too scary even for _me_."

"That okay- _I_ protect you!" Lops promised.

"Well, as long as you're sure." Grandpa nodded seriously. "I think we can start with the _man eaters_ …"

"Man eaters!" Lops gasped, and her imagination was filled up with pictures of daisies with teeth reaching down to gobble up people! "That _is_ scary!"

"They are," Grandpa agreed. "Maybe we should give them a miss…"

But they still sounded cool, and Grandpa was forgetting something!

"No!" Lops declared with her hands on hips. "They man eaters, not kid eaters! They no eat _me_!"

"Well that's true," Grandpa thought. "But what about me? How will you get home if I get eaten?"

"Stay after me!" Lops got in front of Grandpa to show him. "That way they can't get you!"

"Well that's very true," Grandpa's voice sounded funny, and he put his hands on her shoulders. "Well then, as long as you're sure- I suppose we can go in…"

* * *

The meat-eater plants place was under cover, and they were in glass boxes on special tables. They didn't look like daisies though.

Some had two petals with teeth on them and a single stalks, others were just big stalks with an open end. Then there ones that were big and shaped like the vases in the top of the house they didn't break, except they had water inside and a big leaf on top that would close if a bug got inside.

"Can we feed them?" Lops asked excitedly. "Can we!? Can we!?"

"Well I don't know." Grandpa looked at one of the garden people, and gentle tapped him on his shoulder. "Hello there young man, would you mind if…"

Lops turned out as they went into boring grown up talk and stared at one of the little plants with two petals. It was green on the outside but the petals turned pink inside and red on the most-inside, it had another one like it next to it but its petals were mostly closed.

"Hey Lops," Grandpa touched her shoulder, and she looked up to see him holding a bag. "Do you want to feed that one?"

"Yea! Yea! Yea!" Lops quickly nodded, and Grandpa handed her the bag. It was a brown paper one and inside were lots of moving bugs.

"Okay, so I'm going to lift you up and you're going to feed it a bug, these can't hurt you so don't be afraid, but only grab one and you have to wash your hands right after okay?" Lops nodded, and Grandpa lifted her up by her hips until she was right next to the plant. She got to put her fingers into the bag of bugs, and grab one-

No they was all smushy!

"Be gentle Lops." Said Grandpa. "You only need one."

Lops just pulled out a hand of bug bits and picked one that was mostly together, then carefully put her hand next to the plant petals.

"You need to put it on the petals dear," said Grandpa. "Gently!"

Lops nodded, and put the bug on the bottom petal. It was a little sticky so it stayed even though the bugs legs were wiggling and-

The plant started moving!

Lops gasped and pulled her hand away without the bug and the plant closed up like the other one!

"See Lops," Grandpa said into her ear. "Its going to eat that for the next few days and then it'll open back up again and the bug will still be there, but it'll all be empty because the insides were eaten!"

"Woooow!" Lops gasped, then looked up. "Can I feed mores?"

"Sorry Lops, Grandpa shook his head. "We need to get you cleaned up, and we're not allowed to feed plants we don't own."

"But we don't have this one?" Lops was confused.

* * *

Actually they did!

Grandpa was buying the bug eater (not man eater because it was too small to eat people, and Grandpa promised it wouldn't get big enough to gobble him), and they were going to take it home! Lops got to carry it as they went around the plant store some more.

There Lops got showed all sorts of plants, like moss which grew on rocks, and mushrooms which grew in dark places!

"Mushrooms are actually fungus," Grandpa explained, showing her the roots of one through the glass. They were in a specially made dark room in the store so the mushrooms could grow properly. "They aren't really plants, but are more like animals that act like plants!"

"Really?" Lops looked at the mushroom doubtfully, it was a white thing with a stalk and the part of it underneath the dirt sure looked just like plant roots. "It look like plant!"

"Yes… but give it a touch." Grandpa lifted her up, and Lops touched it gently like she was supposed to.

Her eyes got bigger. "It really soft and smooth and squishy!"

"That's because it's more like meat than wood, isn't it?"

"Yea!"

"That's a mushroom for you," Grandpa put her down. "We can't really grow any at home because they're really hard to grow in a garden and some are really poisonous, but a lot are really tasty for eating."

"Why not we grow _this one_ at home?" Lops looked at the mushroom again. It looked really different from other plants but it was small enough to fit under some places in the garden.

"Well you know how plants have a body on top of the ground that sucks up sunlight and some beneath the ground that eats stuff in the dirt and drinks water?" Lops nodded. "Well mushrooms aren't like plants'. See those roots?" Grandpa pointed again, and Lops nodded. "They're actually the mushroom's real body. That part on top it is actually just a fruit like an apple, most of the time it just lives underground and just eats stuff in the dirt, no sunlight at all."

Lops gasped. "Really?"

"Yep, and those roots can go for miles," Grandpa pointed at the mushroom. "This one is just a small one, but a lot of them are bigger than this store!"

"WOW!"

* * *

They didn't get a mushroom, but Grandpa said it would be too hard anyway.

Instead they got some more veggie seeds so they could plant them. Tomatoes and onions and some other stuff she didn't know, since Grandpa liked growing those.

"When you're cooking, you can really make something special with fresh ingredients." Grandpa told her as he picked out seed bags. "The ones from the store are fine, but they usually only stock a few kinds of each ingredient. If you want something that's even better, or a different kind of vegetable the best way to get them is to grow them yourself."

"Is that why your food is so tasty?" Lops asked, holding her new bug-eating plant.

"Well there's also years of dedication and experience in the cooking business," Grandpa smiled. "But if you grow your own you can make something really special with them, that's why I put so much effort into making sure they grow properly."

Lops remembered all the crushed little plants that had just started to grow and her face felt hot again.

"It's okay," she felt Grandpa patting her head. "We're going to go home and plant new ones, and you can help me do it!"

* * *

It didn't seem to take as long to get home since she and Grandpa were talking about stuff, like how to take care of her new plant. She could keep it indoors so she could take from the big house and back but…

"I have to water it whenever the saucer get low!" Lops repeated as Grandpa lowered her out of Vanzilla.

"That's right," Grandpa patted her on the head again as they got inside. "Now, stay in the living room while I go get your Dad, we're going to get you a special pot."

"Okay!" Lops said happily.

Grandpa did his wrinkly eyes smile and went into the kitchen. Lops sat on the ground next to the couch but T.V. wasn't on so she could hear bits of Dad and Grandpa talking.

"… _Really_ Dad?"

"… It'll be like's from both of us this way."

"Fine… more surprised you even still have them at this point."

She stared at her plant some more as she heard footsteps come closer, but they went up the stairs again and she looked back and saw Dad and Grandpa's legs going up the stairs. She looked back at the plant again and wondered if the bug could get out since it wasn't closed all the way.

She couldn't really see into it though so it was probably fine.

"Lops?"

She looked up and saw Dad, who was holding something behind his back and had a weird smile on his face, and Grandpa who was doing his crinkly eye smile again, "yea?"

"Let's go outside, your Dad's going to help us get you a nice thing to put _your_ new plant in."

" _My_ plant?" Lops looked down at the bug-eater that she thought was going to go in the garden, "you mean I get to keep it for me!?"

"Only if you promise to take care of it-"

"Yea! Yea! Yea!" Lops almost hopped, but she didn't want to hurt her plant.

The kid and two grownups got outside quickly, and Grandpa showed her how to get the plant out of the plastic box thing it grew into.

"Now, the trick is to loosen the sides like this." Grandpa held the plastic pot thing good with one hand started quickly tapping on each side with a knife. "Next, you get a good hold of the plant's soil like this," he covered up the dirt on the pot-thing with his hand, letting the plant out in between his thumb and fingers.

"Once you're sure you have a good grip you turn it upside down like this!" Grandpa turned the pot upside down with his other hand, but moved the hand that was covering the soil at the same time so nothing fell out. "Now you just gently let the dirt fall out…"

Grandpa lowered his hand holding the dirt in a bit, but the plant stayed put.

"… just gently let the dirty fall ooout…. let the dirt faaalll ouuut-"

Grandpa had to say it again because the dirt come out the first time, and then came off too easy the third, letting the plant and roots come out but lots of dirt fall down as well.

"… Well that's why we did this outside." Grandpa sighed. "Lincoln?"

"Already got it," Dad said and pulled out a weird green cup thing and a deep saucer like the ones Grandma sometimes used when she was pretending to be fancy. The cup wasn't a pot because it had a handle though.

Maybe pots should have more handles though? She should tell that to Auntie Lisa!

"All right, Lops?" Dad called out and Lops came over to him, "you see the soil in here already?"

Lops looked in and yes, there was dirt in there! "Yea!"

"When you're moving a plant from pot to pot you need to be careful about how much soil you have in the new pot, did Grandpa already tell you why?"

"Ummm.." Lops thought back to before. Yea, just when they were talking about planting things! "Need space for roots, but also dirt for plant food and ummm…."

Grandpa was making a word with his mouth but not talking, silly Grandpa! No one could tell what you were going to say unless you say it! But it sort of looked like he was trying to say…

"Acid!' Lops says proudly as her brain started working. "The dirt is acidy!"

"That _right_ ," Dad smiled at her. "The dirt inside has to have the same kind of acidity as the dirt the plant already likes. Grandpa has some already, but you have to be careful if you need to move it again okay?"

"Okay!" Lops nodded, putting the lesson into her brain.

Dad put the saucer on the ground, and then put the 'pot' into it.

Grandpa brought the plant over, put his other hand around the roots and flipped the plant right side up again. "All right, now this is the easy part, just lower it in gently…"

Grandpa was careful to get all the roots inside first, and the pushed the plant into the put gently. "And now all we need to do is get a bit of dirt to cover up the roots-"

"I got some!" Lops called out, quickly scooping up sort of half handfuls from the floor where it had fallen out and dumping it into the pot.

Grandpa closed his eyes and breathed out. "… Very good Lops, but your Dad got some as well for us." Grandpa pointed to another pot, this was was filled up with drt as well. "Why don't you get some of that, but wait and see how I do it all right?"

Lops nodded again, feeling a little like she'd messed up.

Grandpa took out one his little spades and got out some dirt, then carefully started putting it in the pot. He stayed away from the plant part though- the stem- he just did the outside first and then the roots until they were all covered up.

"All right then, we're almost done." Grandpa smiled. "We just need a little water-"

"But Granpa," Lops pointed to the 'pot'. "It not filled up."

"Ah, good eye!" Grandpa nodded. "But you're not meant to fill it all the way up, always leave a about a little away from the top. It's better for the plants that way."

"Umm, okay…" Lops accepted.

"Good, good." Grandpa pointed at a watering can nearby. "If you're up to it, I think your Dad can help you give this a little water."

"Oh, yea!" Lops ran over to the can and tried to lift it on her own, but it was half her size so it didn't really work. Suddenly Dad was nearby and put his hands underneath hers on the handle to give it a lift!

It was really light now, and Dad wasn't pushing or anything so Lops could lead! She carefully walked over, and Dad followed her, stooped over like Grandpa did some mornings but over her so she was in shade (it was nice).

She pointed the spout end with the cap with lots of holes at the plant and turned the watering can in the way she saw Grandpa do it a lot, but Dad stopped it going too far. "Not too far Lops."

"Why?" Lops looked up.

Grandpa answered. "Too much water at once can be bad for some plants, and you can mess up the soil." He pointed at the soil, "the soil is all light and fluffy right now, right?"

Lops let go of the can and Dad kept up his light pouring. Lops could see the loose dirt around Grandpa's finger, even as water droplets started hitting it and soaking in. "Yea, it all light."

"Well, that lets the roots grow more easily and get air." Grandpa told her. "If you pour too much water in at once it all gets pushed in, and the water can fill up too fast in the pot and run out from over the top. Then the plant has less air and water, so you have to let it soak in like this- see?"

Lops nodded as she watched. Dad kept his hands still and the water kept flowing out like light rain, and the fluffy soil stayed like that, but got nice and wet anyway after about a minute. "It light _and_ wet now!"

"That's right, much better than getting squashed down." Grandpa nodded to Dad, and Dad took the can away.

Lops agreed, the plant's dirt was nice- but…

"Water getting out!" She gasped, and pointed to the puddle forming in the bottom of the saucer.

"Ahh so it is," Grandpa nodded, then help up the plant's old plastic pot and showed her the bottom. "But do you see these holes?"

Sure enough, in the bottom there were a few little holes.

"Yea, how water stay in?" Lops asked in confusion.

"It's not meant to," Grandpa told her. "The soil holds all the water the plant needs, anything more and the plant gets sick and could die-"

Lops gasped, "oh no!"

"Oh no _indeed_ ," Grandpa agreed. "But the plant still needs a drink now and then, what we do is get a pot with a hole in the bottom like your Dad made for us-"

Dad's leg twitched like he was annoyed by something, and Grandpas wrinkles got deeper while his smile got bigger.

"-and put it in a saucer like this." He pointed at the water rising in the saucer. "It keeps a bit of water in it so the soil still touches it, and the plant can drink when it needs too but not too much that it gets sick."

"Wow!" Lops gasped. "That smart!" She looked up at Dad, "you smart Dad!"

Dad blinked, and his smile was weird again. "… Thanks sweetie."

"Yes, yes he is." Grandpa did his little laugh. "Now, let's get this somewhere safe inside. Then you can come help me plant some new veggies!"

"Yea!" Lops smiled, and Dad helped her get the plant inside where the other kids wouldn't knock it over by accident.

* * *

The three would spend that afternoon together, and Lizy and the other kids would be jealous of Lops' plant in the bedroom window for the full hour it was a novelty to them. But they quickly grew bored of the thing since it didn't move.

Lizy was interested when it ate things but not after.

Leia and Londey didn't like dirt or stuff that came from it.

Everyone else thought it was green and found something else to play with

Lops however found herself very happy with her little pet plant from Grandpa, and loved to see it grow in the pot Dad had made for it.

And it was in the dirt with Grandpa, learning about how to grow things and seeing how all the bugs and water and dirt all came together to _make_ new things that she found a love for the seemingly simple but intricate and strange world of gardening. A passion she would carry with her from house to house like her new bug-eating plant, and to many new places long after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> Thanks to Nuuo for the Beta-Read


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